Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com has his finger on the pulse of anything college kids are doing.

We have heard about the success of myspace.com and facebook.com. MySpace is a community oriented site that most people under 30 know about and facebook.com is a college website that everyone with a college email address can gain access to, or submit comments, photos etc on all the postings.

Steven told me that there are some insurance companies and other employers who are checking up on candidates by reviewing their personal site information. The example he gave me, was the person who brags about his drinking habits ( a relatively mild example of a personal posting comment, btw). The insurance company would be very interested in knowing such personal information if they are going to insure this new driver. One could see, he continued, other employers checking out their candidates by visiting their sites, to see exactly what the person is really like.

The warning for college students is to be smart about these community sites and use good judgment. The warning for employers would be not to use the sites as a vehicle to do simpler and more revealing background checks. The sites are very clear about not allowing commercial uses of the information. If you do choose to use these sites to do ‘deep background’ on your candidates, you are at some risk.

What the risk is, no one knows. But if you use these sites, be careful about what you say about yourself, or reveal about yourself. It could impact you in surprising ways.