Can Social networks assist job hunting ?

Here in Norway ( and in many other western countries like States,UK,Canada...) most of the recruiters invariably do Google to find out the suitability of prospective employees who have foreign origin( it does not mean that they don't do it for native people) .They do it because as foreigners it is difficult for them to find out the personality of another foreigner( because culture plays a role in personality) who comes from a not only from a different country but from a different continent.Dating partners,Landlords do online research about each other before they get into deeper waters. Even neighbours do digital social network snooping on neighbours.

How it works for Employers :
- They Google search on their prospective candidates and explore social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to cross-check before they hire anyone.
- They read blogs,comments,posts to understand your attitude.nature and philosophy.
- All the time they give a call to reference (mentioned in resume) and confirm about his behaviour , attitude and work-ethics( not much emphasis is there on technical side as these calls are made by HR guys- who typically do not have much idea about the technical aspects).

Positive side : Now one can use these social networking sites as an extension to resume and
SO DO NOT RESTRICT YOUR RESUME TO RESUME....LET MAKE DIGITAL SOCIAL RESUME.

Recommendations :
- Create Blogs and share your technical and social ideas with others.
- Post your response on others blogs.
- Have a detailed(matching) linked-in profile which gives the SAME information but in different style( so that you can explain your career in different perspective)
- Avoid sharing your spur-of-the-moment opinions, risque photos and outrageous experiences with others including strangers, the danger of compromising your digital identity, privacy and social reputation and, consequently career prospects, is tremendous.
- Try to avoid making public comments ( which have many meanings) as when information goes viral, we cannot recall it a curse of the digital age. Eg. Many Indian politicians/celebrities have been discovering that people have taken their twitter comments in different context.
- Always remember that our digital pasts may not be undone and can haunt us.
- Settings : On all the networking sites they have provided some features that can help us to limit our personal information available online; so change your private settings, delete unwanted comments and remove your names from any photos tagged to identify you ( that is not needed). recently I have a call from friend of mine and he asked about some information that I changed on my facebook account and then I realized that I have to change my Facebook privacy settings to restrict some information outflow......