But don’t forget that even if you do create smaller, more personal networks, anything you do online can be made public, either by a hack or another party in a conversation. We saw the most bluntly obvious version of this when Harvard rescinded its admission offer to Kyle Kashuv after former classmates posted screenshots of racist comments in a Google Doc file on Twitter. It’s best to assume everything you do and say online can be exposed, even if it’s not on a public social network.

Just having an account on a social network generates all sorts of data about you. There’s not much you can do about that. A browser extension, like Privacy Badger, can at least cut off data-hungry social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

There’s another option for developing an online presence that doesn’t leak any data you don’t want it to, if you’re willing to put in the effort: a personal website. Last year, a Vice reporter, Jason Koebler, made a compelling case for bringing personal websites back into style. Before Facebook, setting up your own page on sites like Xanga or LiveJournal was common, and the data controls were simple. This technology is still available to us, easier to use then ever, and gives you control over the privacy levers. Just don’t share a résumé with your phone number on it.

Personal websites are already a must-have in a variety of industries, and paying to set up your own guarantees the data is generally in your control. Buying your own domain and setting up a site also gets you a dedicated email address, like yourname@yourname.com, and pulls you away from Google’s obtrusive Gmail.

Bonus: When your web address is your name, there’s a good chance it’ll bubble up to the top of Google search results with little effort from you.

Retaining the type of social footprint required for work while still managing personal privacy isn’t easy, nor is it foolproof. Terms of service and privacy policies change on a whim, and sites like Facebook tend to move the various privacy toggles around so often that it’s hard to keep track of what you’ve changed. If you must be online, a requirement for so many jobs these days, at least take control over what’s shared and treat a majority of social networks for what they are: a résumé.

From the Archives: ‘Polygraph Tests for Jobs: Truth and Consequences’