It’s mainstream news now that you can post messages and links for your followers in up to 140 characters on Twitter. Most people who tweet post current status, observations, and interesting ideas. All these messages are searchable.

Recently, a message by a candidate in the hiring process that they assumed was private was picked up by their hiring company. Not only that, but this individual has also become a public scapegoat for this public faux pas. The lesson here is that social media has increased personal transparency.

Twitter gets you fired in 140 characters or less goes further in reminding us that the Internet in general and social networking tools specifically offer public visibility. Curiously, in terms of social network profile use by recruiters, German recruiters are twice as likely to view candidate social sites as their UK colleagues. And candidates do not consider what they write on their social networking sites as less than a third think this will affect their chances of securing a position.

On the recruiting side, businesses are turning to Twitter to cut recruitment costs and pushing job postings out via tweetmyjobs and job search engine twitterjobsearch.com.

Taleo has joined the conversation on Twitter and has a presence on Facebook.

We’re also pleased this blog is now included in the new blog aggregation site called HR Tech Central. Check it out.