Residency interviews

[Chestnut23]

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I noticed a lot of my med school friends change their names on facebk when they're applying for residencies. Does this really matter if you keep everything hidden?

Do residencies really check your facebk profile?

How far do they go in "researching" you...
😕

 

[Stellar Clouds]

"Paranoia paranoia, everybody's coming to get me!"

 

[DrSnips]

I noticed a lot of my med school friends change their names on facebk when they're applying for residencies. Does this really matter if you keep everything hidden?

Do residencies really check your facebk profile?

How far do they go in "researching" you...
😕

My Profile

I doubt most programs check facebook, though I will say that at NYU the PD was going around the room talking about people's hobbies that he got off of facebook. He knew us all by heart. Most people seemed thrilled that he would take the time, but I found it a bit weird.

 

[Raryn]

I doubt most programs check facebook, though I will say that at NYU the PD was going around the room talking about people's hobbies that he got off of facebook. He knew us all by heart. Most people seemed thrilled that he would take the time, but I found it a bit weird.

Did he say he got them off FB?

Many PDs I saw on the interview trail talked about people's hobbies... that they listed on ERAS.

 

[DrSnips]

Did he say he got them off FB?

Many PDs I saw on the interview trail talked about people's hobbies... that they listed on ERAS.

Yes, he mentioned it specifically.

 

[sirius08]

He may have been joking or seeing what kind of reaction he'd get. How many people do you know that list their hobbies on facebook? Most people keep their profiles very well hidden these days. Even if facebook profile information was more accessible, why go through all that trouble when you can get that information in the "Hobbies" section of ERAS? Sounds like an extremely low-yield activity, especially for a person with limited time to spare.

Also, I'd find it really creepy if a PD started talking about information that I hadn't shared on ERAS or that was not mentioned elsewhere in my application. It'd probably be enough reason for me to not rank the program.

 

[LIMed2007]

I was specifically told by a PD on one of my interviews that he looked up Facebook profiles on all candidates being considered for an interview. If he found something questionable, he didn't offer an interview.

 

[redy]

I was specifically told by a PD on one of my interviews that he looked up Facebook profiles on all candidates being considered for an interview. If he found something questionable, he didn't offer an interview.

I find that scary. Got to question that PDs methods. I would rather not work with that PD if I had a choice.

 

[Jessipeds]

Residents told me they check applicants' facebook profiles at a couple of the places I auditioned at/interviewed at. I even overheard them laughing about stuff they had read, it was kinda weird.

I didn't change my name on facebook, but last year when I was MS3 and thinking about residency, I just went into my facebook settings and made everything on my profile only accessible to my friends. Not friends of friends, just friends. And I made myself unsearchable, where if you type in my name, you can't find me. You can't search for me. And I also do not pop up in search engines if you search me. It worked out pretty well. I didn't have to change my name.

 

[pooh86]

This also applies to when you do aways. I know residents whom got an away student into trouble because the away student posted inappropriate things on their facebook. This was then related to the PD of the program and lets just say that it didn't end well.

 

[survivordo]

Seems a little bit of overkill. Just set good privacy settings and take down / untag any photos of you doing bong rips and you should be good.

Survivor DO

 

[EMME]

Facebook is now a private corporation, meaning they can will and do sell their/your information to whom ever is willing to buy it. If you think about it, it's an excellent tool to screen out people who wouldn't fit in.

 

[EMME]

I don't know who has the time or money to research your profile, but I've heard of non-medical companies using fb to help check out applicants for a job.

 

[JGimpel]

Bored attendings or nosy HR people can check for a myspace or fb account pretty quickly. If you're in rotations with a lot of other students from your school, they can have you look through the profiles of friends of yours or have them look through your profile if so inclined. Gunners that are only acquaintances of yours, but connected to your profile can do all sorts of stuff to make you look bad if they're competing for the same residency spot; but I'm sure that would never happen. PDs may want you to friend them too if you're interested in their program. A printout of your wall may end up in a file somewhere if that's interesting too. 2AM tweets from a bar may end up on your interview. I think you get the drift.

Just a few ways these social media sites can come back to bite you in the interview process later on.

 

[Buzz Me]

DO NOT have anything on Facebook that could come back and bite you in the ass. You'd be surprised how many program directors look through applicants' pages.

 

[woeiru]

Don't bother doing the name-change during interview season- they'll find you if they want to. I can also pretty much guarantee a patient or two in the future will probably try to facebook-stalk you as well. Ms. Jones (or whoever) probably isn't going to want you operating on her after seeing your weekend escapades, so go ahead and just delete anything scandalous or lock your privacy settings down hard now.

 

[mcl]

Don't bother doing the name-change during interview season- they'll find you if they want to. I can also pretty much guarantee a patient or two in the future will probably try to facebook-stalk you as well. Ms. Jones (or whoever) probably isn't going to want you operating on her after seeing your weekend escapades, so go ahead and just delete anything scandalous or lock your privacy settings down hard now.

Way back in 2010 I attended an education conference where one of the breakout sessions dealt with social media. Verbatim from my notes: "70% of job recruiters have rejected a candidate bacause of information they have found online." The data presented was for all employers, not specifically for medical residency, but I imagine the practice has become more common rather than less so assume your social network accounts are being searched whenever it involves employment.

The other important point from my notes is that Facebook and Google have proprietary rights to anything posted online or in gmail, and even deleted items are cached somewhere--nothing really ever goes away. Think of any content you post as being part of a public conversation. Don't put it online unless you'd be OK with seeing it on a billboard.

 

[dally1025]

Many of the people interviewing me hadn't looked through my ERAS file so I find it hard to believe that they would go to the trouble of searching through facebook to find me. I was told by the PD at my home program that some PDs do check out applicants' facebook profiles so I just went through and looked at all my photos, wall posts, etc and made sure there wasn't anything embarassing.

 

[konRAD 1]

Agreed. Get rid of embarrassing stuff and you should be good. I never changed my name on there. I wouldn't want to have to be a fake anyways and match at a place that wasn't okay with what I put on FB anyhow...