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Facebook has always been your online identity. Strangers have known you and even judged you by looking at your Facebook profile. Today, as you decide to spend more time chatting with friends and posting updates, even your parents, teachers and real life peers judge you by the look and feel of your Facebook profile. You chat with befriended strangers on Facebook, you post weird updates about your late night hangout, you upload photos dating the girl next door and so on. You do not care to keep your profile clean because you feel you are independent and have all right to enjoy your life. That is absolutely true but one thing you need to remember seriously is that you should have a clean Facebook profile whenever you apply for a job because these days a majority of the applicants are being rejected because their employers find their profile on a real mess. Do you think you will get a job if you upload your drunk photos with a bear can in your hand, and what if you post updates bullying your former boss who fired you for coming late to work. You might be left out even if one of your friends tag a photo of yours partying with the description “We were so drunk last night”. All these said and heard, its time that you step forward and maintain a clean Facebook profile so that your application is not rejected and you are considered a diligent and faithful candidate.

Many people advocate that you should keep your photos and wall posts private, but the more hidden your information is, the more your employer will doubt your character. So instead of hiding your details why not present them in such a way as to win the heart of the employer. If during the interview the interviewer asks you why your profile is private and insists that you should show him your complete profile, what would your reply be. Will your answer be a straight forward “No”. You will definitely be rejected. If you say “I want to keep my personal and professional life separate”. Will they agree. I do not think so. Even this diplomatic answer may cost you the job. If you agree to show them your profile, how comfortable will you feel in doing so. And what if they see your inappropriate photos and weird updates. You are gone.

I know of many online services, which will take care of your online reputation if you become their paid member. But they themselves are reputed with the notoriety of charging thousands of dollars every year. So why spend so much money in building a good reputation while you can do it for free. Here I bring forward some last minute tricks to clean up your Facebook profile so that you do not lose your job and indeed create an impression over your interviewer. Perform these steps as soon as you can to avoid the last minute hassle.

1. Go through your Facebook profile page and delete every single wall post which looks weird and delete all images which brings in a feeling of indecency. If you want to keep some of your memorable wall posts, just hide them from your timeline. You can show them up again at a later time. But you can’t hide your photos. You have to delete them.

2. Ask your friends to take down any tagged photo of yours which doesn’t look appropriate. Then go to the Privacy Settings and edit the Timeline and Tagging settings and choose to review tagged images of yours once your friends tag you. You will then have the option to review your tagged image before it goes live on Facebook.

3. You may be friends with people you do not know in person. Check though your friends list and delete any friend whose profile doesn’t look decent or who has uploaded vulgar photos and posted just nonsense stuff. There is a great saying, “A man is known by the company he keeps”.

4. If you do not want people to find you by typing your name on search engines, go to the Public Search option in your Privacy Settings and uncheck the Enable Public Search option. Some of your timeline information may be available for a few days after you have turned off the Public Search option, but eventually search engines will stop showing them.

5. Change your name so that your employer can’t find you. Go to Account Settings and click on Edit next to your Name and change it to something different. Facebook says it takes maximum 24 hours to confirm name changes but it doesn’t generally take that much time. The change is not permanent and you are free to revert it back any time. This trick is very useful if you do not have the time to scrutinize your whole profile.

6. Even if you change your name your boss may be clever enough to search you by your email address. In that case your profile will be discovered. So why not change your primary email address. In Account Settings itself you will find Edit next to your Email. Click on edit and add another email account. If you do not have a secondary email id, create one. It’s so easy. After adding one, you have to confirm it. Open your new email account and click the link to confirm it. Now select it as your primary email and delete the previous one.

7. You can also deactivate your Facebook account. Go to Account Settings. On the left-hand sidebar click security, a page will appear where there will be a link Deactivate your account. Click the link and follow the steps to deactivate your account. Your account will not be deleted permanently and will be revived once you login. While your account is inactive, it may be possible that people find your name when they type it.

8. The last option you have is deleting your Facebook account permanently. This is the last thing you can do if you want to get rid of Facebook for life. This change is permanent and non-revertible. Visit the URL https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account and click on Delete My Account. You are done.

So now you know how to control your Facebook account and make it run as per your will. Before an interview change your name and email address and coming back in the evening revert it back to the original. You make your boss happy saying that you do not have a Facebook account and when he checks he finds you are right. Your photos, your posts remain intact. Just remember this tutorial and play around with Facebook. You are more free than ever.