1. What kinds of information do you think recruiters can legitimately expect to learn on a social-networking site? What would they have to learn elsewhere?
2. How do you protect yourself from appearing unprofessional when you use social-networking sites or other public Internet communications?

Along with inviting applications at Web sites and posting ads on job boards, today's recruiters often visit networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to find potential candidates with suitable interests and experience. But sometimes the efforts get awkward.
HR professional Michael Janas, for example, landed an executive job through LinkedIn but thinks recruiters occasionally get sloppy. For example, he has known recruiters to ask early on about a candidate's year of graduation from college, a tactic that could support age discrimination.
He also says some recruiters rely too much on easy assumptions about what they see when they need to go deeper into the details of a potential candidate's background.
And, of course, there are the horror stories of people who post information that works against them in a job search.
Author and social-media expert Sarah Browne recalls a part-time employee who was being considered for a full-time position. Unfortunately for that employee, he posted a message on Facebook that he'd be unable to attend a party because his boss was so demanding. Instead of giving him the job, the boss fired him later for poor professional judgment.