Employers are taking extreme measures to check on job applications.

Its common for employers to do background checks using third parties, but how would you react if your boss goes through your tweets and Facebook posts?

It has been reported that employers are even asking for user names and passwords so they can have agencies investigate past behaviour. This will determine whether the individual is appropriate for the corporate culture. In fact, an Employer has recently added to its application form

Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.

Can you imagine your boss seeing pictures of your stag or hen weekend.

How about your human resources department searching for friends you have in competitor companies. Maybe they will try to poach them. You could even imagine disgruntled clients or employees getting hold of your username and searching for blackmail material or perhaps your political views on subjects such as Twitter Iran Elections.

In the world of the internet, social network sites could rapidly integrate with our corporate lives and make life more boring. As you can imagine, we have no control over what our friends post about us. However, what if the interviewer obtains all your usernames and presents a summary of Twitter and Facebook data during an interview. It could be rather embarrassing.

Privacy is the primary issue here, but its not the only one. You may have your Twitter, Facebook or Myspace accounts closed because providing your username and password to another person breaks the terms and conditions of service. A typical terms of service will read

You will not share your password, let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.

In the meantime, you could use social blogs to your advantage. If you are actively seeking employment, why not increase your profile and target prospective employers by tweeting them.

People looking for a career change have used a smart application to increase their job opportunities. For example,

Increase-Twitter-Followers

can be used to target employers and rapidly build a following of thousands. Imagine thousands of employers reading your posts. You will potentially have employers coming to you rather than vis-versa.

In summary, you have to be desperate to hand out your usernames and passwords to Twitter, Facebook and Myspace just to get a job. Don’t sell yourself short, but rather have employers knocking down your door desperate for your talent as demonstrated on your Twitter Posts and Facebook blogs.