Forget Facebook!

From my own personal experience working in a Proposal Management role, I have found that Facebook really has no appropriate place in a formal corporate environment.  Furthermore, as one of the youngest team members at the time my Facebook was probably full of the more questionable content than my co-workers.  But, one day I was faced with the dilemma that one of my superiors at work had 'friended' me.  Reluctantly, I added her, which slowly led to my having to add other coworkers and eventually to my own professional demise.

Facebook was developed as a social networking tool, where as LinkedIn was developed as a business networking tool.  One would not use a hammer in place of a screwdriver, so why would one replace one tool with another completely different tool in the business world.  After adding my coworkers each time I would go to a party that had pictures on facebook, they would know.  If I sneaked online during work to talk to a friend, they would know.  But mostly what they found out is that I wasn't like them at all and spent most of my time out of work enjoying myself and having fun.  This put me in a very vulnerable position where I could be judged on my behaviour outside of work, which is not necessarily fair, but it is what happens.

My advice to anybody starting out in the corporate world would be to start a LinkedIn account and use that primarily for business networking.  Keep Facebook for friends and social networking.  I'm not saying that one should never ever acquire a new Facebook friend or even social acquaintance at work, but just to always exercise proper caution and judgment.