RELEASE - If LinkedIn is Your Resume, Facebook is the Interview

In the last 6 months, we’ve noticed a significant increase in the amount of 40+ adults using Facebook, adapting the site’s use to both social and professional networking, and leaving business-oriented networks like LinkedIn in the dust. My boss recently joined Facebook and is having an absolute blast – in the last two months she’s surpassed the number of friends I’ve accumulated throughout the course of my 3 years on Facebook. She’s reconnected with legions of people from her past, coordinated dinner parties & nights out through her various networks, and made countless business connections (for herself and others). What makes Facebook so exciting and LinkedIn so uninspiring is that Facebook allows users to get a real sense of what people are like; if you think about LinkedIn as the resume, Facebook is the interview.

Of course, no discussion of social networking sites is complete without a mention of MySpace. Although more Americans have MySpace accounts than Facebook profiles, the most active members are teens and tweens who love MySpace Music and the ability to “pimp” their profiles.

Previously, networking sites were seen as purely social adventures, a space that was very different from one’s professional world. However, as teens enter young adulthood, we see them shifting towards Facebook, as a dynamic hybrid between the highly social MySpace and serious LinkedIn. When applying for jobs, young adults are aware that a curious employer may try to look them up on social networking sites, and that once they do get a job, they will receive tons of friend requests from colleagues and bosses alike. Facebook, with its plain-text format and streamlined layout comes across as the best format to virtually represent one’s self.

With Facebook steadily gaining popularity across all age groups, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for social networking. In our interviews with teenagers, a year ago they were saying they didn’t want to be friends with their parents or extended family online, where as now, they’ve seemed to figure out how to navigate the virtual space together (much like living at home – teens trust that their parents won’t snoop around or read their diaries). Perhaps it IS possible for kids, parents & bosses to all coexist on one site.

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