I come to you today with a cautionary tale of the woes of the Internet. Don't worry I'm not about to start preaching about how good the old days were and how I wish we could all go back to corresponding by letter and using quills... although anyone that knows me will know this to be true! Instead I come with a warning, of the perils of disclosure, and how it can get you into trouble in the workplace.

The virtual love train for Twitter has far exceeded my expectations, especially as 'flash in the pan' was what first sprung to mind. I remember my first interaction with Twitter, forever the cynic at new social inventions, I entered my details with a raised eyebrow and expected to find a whole host of things I had to gripe about.  But shockingly, I loved it, and still love it. It has turned out to be a socially convenient, work friendly, staple of my day- my boss was even the one to alert me to the wonders of Twitter Fox; allowing me to be at one with my Twitter stream, tucked neatly in the corner of my browser, twinkling away when a new tweet appears.

Although Twitter is a fantastical tool and especially handy for job seeking, like anything fabulous on the Internet you can waste hours idly reading people's tweets until you end up somewhere and have no idea where you began! N.B to my boss: I don't do this... honest! Time-waster browsing aside, there is a bigger problem with Twitter. The potential for rants. You see a white box with the potential for 140 characters worth of getting-things-off-your-chest. Cue angry messages about irritating late trains, rude people in shops, poor customer service... and you can't help but feeling a little better knowing that you've released your negative energy into the vast abyss of the world wide web.

And of course the potential for rants is endless, especially when you spend a large proportion of your day at work. Let's face it, there are going to be annoyances to you in the workplace. Your sleep deprived, desperation for caffeine makes you intrinsically angrier than usual, and your colleague has just done that one annoying thing too many...

Just typing the words, 'I hate my boss' or 'I hate my job' into the Twitter search brings back a scary amount of angry employee rants. But has the term 'Facebook fired' escaped their attention?! Many office workers have gotten into trouble, and even fired for their errant Facebook statuses, which either incriminate them in falsely claimed sick days or has alerted the company to their intense dislike of the business.

Either way, choosing to disclose your hatred of work on Twitter or Facebook is a seriously misjudged and terrible idea. Helen Popkin, on msnbc.com calls it 'virtual darwinism'- people who fail to realise the error of posting such rants on public channels, almost deserve their fate.

And if anyone isn't familiar with the infamous Cisco/Twitter related job incident, read this and cringe at your leisure.

So the moral of my cautionary tale is this: if you want to keep your job, avoid social networks on those days when you just might blow... or it could be far more trouble than it's worth. And remember the 'delete' key may not save you; Google has a lovely way of caching historical data so your deleted tweets may still turn up somewhere you don't want them to...

Continuing with my graduate themed blog week, I have scoured the web leaving no virtual stone unturned, to give you my top 5 unmissable additions to your job hunt:

1) LinkedIn- This site is a great way to connect with people in the business world. It combines all the best bits of a social networking site and delivers them in one shiny neat package for the professional market. It's sort of like Facebook but without the 'which powerpuff girl are you?' quizzes and the unflattering drunken photos tagged of you. LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to network with business people and you can search and invite them to connect with you; contacts that may even lead to securing you your next job. You can add your blog and even create a business bio to show off your skills, talents and educational achievements.

2) Twitter- What's this? Twitter for a job search? Surely not, I hear you cry. But don't underestimate the mighty Twitter and it's ability to help you in your job hunt. The recruitment industry is never one to be left in the dark when it comes to embracing new technologies and popular social mediums, so it was only a matter of time before recruitment agencies, job boards and other recruitmenty individuals divebombed with full force onto the Twitter bandwagon. Thought only by some to be a faddy micro blogging phenomenon that will be forgotten when 'MyFaceReunited' brings out some other uber trendy social platform; but Twitter has already established itself as an ideal place for the job market to infiltrate. You can search for jobs on Twitter, follow your favourite jobsite to see their latest vacancies and even get jobseeking tips tweeted to you, if you follow the right accounts.

One jobs website that uses Twitter particularly successfully for jobseeking is AllTheTopBananas.com, who have set up over 200 Twitter handles for specific location and industry based job searching. By looking at the following list of @alltopbananas you can decide which of their accounts to follow and receive job alerts straight to your Twitter account in a direct message. The DM feature of Twitter allows you to keep your job search entirely private, so no-one can see these tweets. For more information on how to jobseek with AllTheTopBananas and Twitter, you can check out the Twitter Page on their site.

3) Boris might have 'just the job'- OK, some of you might have the impression that Boris Johnson is nothing more than a random tory loon with a penchant for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But despite any reservations you may have over the wispy haired oddball, he has come up with a few less than hair brained ideas- and some of those might even help you find a job!

Boris has come up with a site specifically aimed at getting graduates into work, and displays over 500 vacancies in and around the London borough specifically for you lot, you lucky bunch! The site also has careers advice and information on upcoming recruitment events in London to boot, so it is definitely worth a look.

4) Try on a career for size- Graduates of 2008 and 2009 should take a look at newly launched site Graduate Talent Pool; a website dedicated to pairing graduates up with internships and placements. The site has over 3000 vacancies which can be searched by location, career, start date, duration of the placement and whether you require a paid or unpaid vacancy. Its aim is to ensure graduates have the opportunity to gain work experience to make finding their next job that bit easier.

5) FreeMyCV.com- Ok so no jobseeking list could be complete without mentioning the very best site to aid your job hunt!! A shameless plug you scream? yes, yes it is- but at least I didn't put it at the top of the list! For those of you who may have come into the wonderful world of my blog and managed to completely bypass the other pages of this site- FreeMyCV.com is a free CV distribution service that aims to make the jobseeker's life a lot easier. Rather than spending ages filling out the same information on various different websites so that you are registered and thus can actually apply for some jobs, we ask you to fill in this info only once, and we'll do all the legwork for you! We'll register you on different jobs websites that match your skills and provide you with these registrations so that you can then go on and job hunt more efficiently. We will also give them your CV so that employers can contact you directly if they have a vacancy that matches your skills. Simple!!

Happy Job Hunting!!

Finding out that your new potential employer has become your latest stalker on Facebook might seem unlikely, but they really might be only one click away from discovering all of your juicy personal info. From finding out where you went boozing at the weekend to seeing that god-awful picture of you partying it up in Ibiza six years ago; these little snippets into your social life may well be accessible to your boss- or potential boss.

Let’s face it; we’ve all done it, right? You’ve spoken to someone on the phone at work so you decide to type their name into Facebook to see if anything comes up, or you’ve given yourself or your work colleagues a cheeky Google, to see what dirt the World Wide Web has on you. So if you do this kind of thing anyway, what’s to stop your new or current employer delving into the vast realms of social media to find out exactly what you’re like?

According to an article on The Guardian Online this week, it might be more likely than you think. In these times of applicant rich job hunting, employers are looking beyond your shiny CV and immaculate turnout at interview to ensure that they are employing the right candidate out of hundreds they may have lined up for one vacancy.

So with this in mind, why not take a look at your social networking trail, and see how favourable it is to the working world.

Twitter is bad because:

Unless you have protected your updates in the privacy settings, your tweets are visible to anyone who wishes to see them.

You don’t have to be following someone to be able to see their tweets- so tweets slating your job or your work colleagues, and tweets about how smashed you were at the weekend, probably shouldn’t appear on your Twitter page.

Use Twitter sensibly- remember you are broadcasting to a wide audience, wider than you probably think. So if there are things you don’t want people to know- simply don’t tweet about them!

Twitter is great because:

Twitter is a fantastic social media tool and is rapidly becoming an amazing way for people to connect, job seek, network, or simply find out the latest news and gossip, in real-time.

Using Twitter sensibly and utilising the power of communication that it offers is a great way to make contacts in the business world, share your views on topics important to you, and to even find that dream job.

Use Twitter to supplement your job search. AllTheTopBananas currently have a job tweet service online, where you can see the latest jobs from their site, by following one of their location or job specific accounts.

So, think about your tweets and think about how you can use Twitter to your advantage, it doesn’t have to scupper your job hunt- it could just help it!

Facebook is bad because:

Certain information is available publicly, so check your settings to see what first impression your Facebook description gives.

Always think about the trail! Even if you are not friends with your boss or potential employer, someone you know might be friends with someone else, who can see your wall posts to them, and somehow a circle forms that means your posts are not as private as you thought!

Most of us have had one of those nights where a pint or two has turned into a bit of a mad session of drunken mayhem, and you just know that it is these nights where you friends are snap, snap, snapping away with their cameras. Being tagged in pictures or having people post photo albums that can be publicly viewed may mean those horrendous drunken moments are on view for the world to see.

Facebook is great because:

Facebook is a great tool to stay in touch with your friends old and new. You can share pictures with your friends and chat to them without having to remember their email address.

Facebook can be more private than you probably realise. There are lots of privacy settings that you can tweak to protect your personal info, so why not have a browse and see exactly what you have on display.

So remember... this article is not meant to scare you off from the world of social media. You don’t have to go running back to the Stone Age and begin sending out carrier pigeons to connect with the world. Your online presence can greatly beneficial and may even help you to secure that dream job. You can use social media sites to connect with potential employers, you could use a blog to showcase your writing talent and passion for a subject, you can use Twitter to job search... the possibilities are endless. Just remember that while your tweeting or facebooking, your next employer just might be watching, so be careful what you share with the world!