Online networking may decide job prospects!

Your social networking activities online -- whether you tweet a few lines or scribble on the Facebook wall -- could well decide your job prospects.

Your social networking activities online — whether you tweet a few lines or scribble on the Facebook wall — could well decide your job prospects,as more number of American employers are turning to such sites before zeroing in on the right candidate for employment.

A major chunk of the US employers are banking on social networking sites such as Twitter,Facebook,LinkedIn and MySpace,to research on a candidate before recruitment,says a survey.

Nearly half of employers surveyed in the US by job portal CareerBuilder showed that 45 per cent of them use social networking sites to research job candidates. Last year,the same stood at just 22 per cent.

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About 11 per cent are planning to start using social networking sites for screening.

Moreover,about 35 per cent of employers reported that they have found content on social networking sites that made them decide not to hire the candidate.

The survey was conducted online within the US by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com between May 22 and June 10,2009 among 2,667 hiring managers and human resource professionals.

Going by the findings,Facebook is the most preferred among employers with 29 per cent of the employers using that site for online searches or background checks before recruiting candidates.