Here at the Stony Brook University School of Journalism, we were graced this week with a visit from Joe Grimm, the longtime recruiting editor for the Detroit Free Press, a Poynter columnist and one of the nation’s experts on newspaper careers. Since leaving the Freep 19 months ago, Joe has moved much of his voluminous advice for internship seekers and job hunters onto his Web site, http://www.jobspage.com/. And he’s expanding his bailiwick beyond newspapers to news careers of all sorts. (No fool, he.)

Joe is a witty, warm, nice man. We kept him busy for two days, meeting with faculty, meeting with our seniors and speaking to classes. I’ll have a lot to say about his visit over the next couple of days, but for now, I’d like to reflect on something he said about Facebook.

When Joe met with our graduating seniors, someone asked him what he wanted or didn’t want to see on a job applicant’s Facebook page. Stupid pictures are bad, of course, he said, the ones that show you crazed from booze or flaunting assets best left to the imagination.

We’ve all heard that before.

But then he mentioned Facebook groups, and that was one of those this-is-so obvious-how-could-I-never-have-thought-of it moments. I’d never thought about how groups I’d idly joined, whether out of interest, to show solidarity or to please a friend, could so easily reflect personal opinions, political leanings or beliefs that I might not want to share with every “friend” I have on Facebook. As Joe said several times, anything you put online is ubiquitous–everywhere–and forever.

I’ve dropped some groups from my list now. No doubt there’s still a way for anyone determined to dig up the names of those groups to do so, but few people will bother, I’d be willing to bet. Monitoring one’s online persona is a constant responsibility, and now I’m going to avoid joining groups that reveal more about me than I might wish.