Quote from retaildaytrader:
I use Facebook all the time and have found people that I have not seen for 15 or more years. In fact, I found people that I went to high school with.
If you do not use Facebook, then you are truly losing out. In fact, I would see it as a negative in the hiring process if a person did not have a Facebook account. It means they do not use the internet.
The LinkedIn profile can be a liability however. Other people can use your LinkedIn to contact your business contacts. Do you want other people contacting your contacts?
What?
No one can use my linkedin profile unless I accept them. They cannot see my contact list. The only way they can see if I am connected to someone is to search out that person FIRST and then see "how you are connected to so and so". The connections tab only lets you see who you have in common with the person in question. You then have to "Request" an introduction to contact someone else's contact through them. That person can deny it.
Never had one problem in all the time I've used linkedin.
As for your other (silly) comments about not having a facebook account meaning they don't use the internet:
I am a director in a large Fortune 500 company (over 20,000 people). Just for kicks, I IM'd some other hiring managers on my corporate group list. I asked them...
"Would you go looking for someone's facebook account prior to hiring them? Would having a facebook account make it more or less likely to hire that individual?" I just asked them, this morning after I saw this post.
Not one of them said that not having a facebook account would mean anything whatsoever. Not one. Several of them said that they would go looking to see if someone had a facebook account. All of them said they would check Linkedin. One HR manager informed me that our background check company checks social networking sites to compare information.
I polled 7 individuals, director level or above.