If you are applying for a job or a disgruntled employee, keep your embarrassing pictures and information away from public and well-known social networking sites or better don’t post them online – your boss might be Googling your name!

A recent study conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com determined that 45 percent of employers questioned were using social networks to screen job candidates — more than double from a year earlier, when a similar survey found that just 22 percent of supervisors were researching potential hires on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn.

If you think keeping your Facebook profile page private or not accepting your employer’s friend invitation helps, think again! Employers can view your “private” Facebook pictures using a third-party application that only needs your profile id to work. They can also view your limited profile by sending you a message or by poking you.

Keep your public profiles professional and dump your private stuff offline or in a “secret” site or blog!