From the 2009 BS&T Executive Summit: The Need for Social Networking 'Smarts'

For those of our readers with children in college, attendees at the 2009 BS&T Executive Summit have some good job seeking advice: be careful of how they portray themselves on social networking sites.During the session "The People Factor and the Future of Banking IT," Fifth Third Bank's Sid Deloatch, SVP, Enterprise Solutions IT, and Sonny Sonnenstein, SVP and deputy CIO, corporate systems & information management, discussed ways in which their respective banks were recruiting new employees and techniques for retaining and motivating current workers. In addition to face-to-face work, social networking was also starting to play a role in how they do this.

The generation factor was a large part of the discussion too. Although there are differences between the three main parts of the workforce-Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y-everyone agreed that workers of all ages are all looking for the same things in terms of fairness, appreciation and life balance.

But it was during the Q&A portion that someone asked the speakers whether seeing a prospective employee's Facebook page ever influenced their banks' hiring decisions. The answer from the speakers and the questioner was "yes."

Students might think it's cool to post pictures of themselves and their friends from the frat party, to talk about how "sloshed" they got, but if they think it's going to win them any favors with employers, they should think again. A lot of that can come back to haunt them.

And it's not just prospective employees and students, but current employees as well who need to be wary on the social networking world. Other attendees told me stories of how people were actually fired from the organization after badmouthing their boss on Facebook. Of course, it often helps not to "friend" that boss on Facebook, as one particular person did, a banker told me after the session.

Everyone's still learning when it comes to Web 2.0-whether banks or individuals. But it was clear from the Summit that Web 2.0 concepts are sure to become a more integral part of how banks interact with their workforces.