The point isn't that you shouldn't party or get drunk every now and then, just not to make that the bane of your existence. You wouldn't want to hire someone who looks like ALL they want to do is have a good time. I love going out and having drinks with friends. Who doesn't?! But there are other aspects of my life, too. Looking at some profiles online, you'd think that all there is to some people's lives is getting wasted.

You're representing yourself online. You're the one giving the impression that your life = party time! 24/7. Obviously you want people to think of you a certain way. The general public includes employers. If your actions reflect poorly on you, whose fault is it? Not your friend with the camera.

However, we are talking about outside of work, outside of presentation in an interview.

Anyone can give a great interview, and have great manners. You do a background check and see that they haven't broken a law in their life.

Then you dig even further, because background check isn't enough. You have to scrutinize every aspect of their life. You see on their facebook, he/she has a Tattoo that was hidden during the interview. One of their friends took a picture of them passed out on a couch from too much alcohol consumption during a weekend party. That person even listens to heavy metal.

Now just five minutes before you checked their facebook, you were ready to hire this person. Now you're going to second guess yourself? They had the qualifications, the education, the experience, the manners, the presentation, and a great interview and now you're going to say no to them.

I believe their are boundaries to how far an employer goes. The chances are, if you hired an employee before facebook, you've probably already hired someone who does the same kind of things. Gets drunk on weekends, has a tattoo, listens to heavy metal, and they may even be your best employee. So are you going to fire them now?

There is work, and there is life, and I don't work the way I live my life, and I don't have to justify the way I live for anyone.

Should job hunters return the favour and check the hiring manager out before going to the interview?

I am constantly involved in the interviewing/evaluation/hiring processes on behalf of my employer. There are MANY MANY aspects of a person unrelated to job performance (before you are hired, employers cannot judge your performance, remember!) which are factored into that person'a evaluation by a hiring team. For example, any visible piercings can – and often do – carry a highly negative impact, depending upon the corporate culture of the potenial employer. Ditto tattoos.

Badly spoken and/or ungrammatical English – droppin' yer G's, fer example – can pretty much elimate you from any position as a "corporate representative". Ditto "bad manners". Should an interview take place over lunch in a restaurant, rest assured that your table manners are being evaluated, your eating habits, your social skills etc.

In a for-profit context, employers have EVERY RIGHT to expect employees to project the values of the corporate culture in which they are employed.

That having been said, please don't go out abnd get all educated on me, okay! My wife is doing VERY well offering "training" services to corporate clients who are dealing with the reality that the average North-American born and bred man or woman CANNOT PERFORM ADEQUATELY at a social/business level in Europe or in international business contexts. She billed almost half a million last years teaching the self-esteem-inflated young egos how to get peas from their plate into their mouths, how to cut meat on their plate, and how to select, order and taste a wine.

I've locked my profile, but even so, if employers can see pictures of you from your friend's facebook, and your friends don't lock their's down, might not have some good pictures. I know my friends have pictures of me, pissed out of my head at a party. Mind you I was 18 or 19 at the time, but even now I spend my weekends drinking with friends at the bars, going to clubs and dancing with beautiful girls.

I recently started a great job, in the field I want to be in. I love my job alot, and I've been told for just starting out, I do my job very well. I'm a network technician, and my job involves alot of thinking and troubleshooting, and by my peers I've been called super tech for doing such a good job.

Now imagine if my employers looked at my facebook page, and see me with two or three beers in my hands, grinding with some bimbo on the dance floor? You gotta think to yourelf, do I really want to hire this guy? Who knows, maybe they did see photos of me on facebook, and they hired me anyways.

I believe that facebook is an outlet for outside of work, to share with others, it keeps you tight with friends and family, and thats how I use it.