About a month ago, career coach Jefferey Ward offered young Federal employees some advice on maintaining their social network presence (e.g., Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn).

Federal Computer Week writer Florence Olsen offered this summary of his advice:

If you are a young federal employee with ambitions to become a government leader, do yourself a career favor: Don’t let any wild party pictures or other unprofessional-looking content taint your Facebook profile and, possibly, your career.

Olsen followed up by paraphrasing an additional Ward prediction that fledging Federal employees would do well to weigh:

Young feds often hear that many opportunities for advancement and leadership will open up in the federal government any time now as the large baby boom generation begins to retire in record numbers. But Ward told a different story. He said many senior employees who are eligible for retirement are not retiring, for various reasons.

This doesn’t mean that opportunities to advance won’t abound as Boomers step down, but it does mean that it’s not going to be as easy as you might hope. The search for standout talent is on, and posting a photo of yourself in your Tinkerbell Halloween costume might give the tie to another equally qualified candidate who doesn’t spend his or her time trying on tights and waving magic wands (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Ward is essentially acknowledging that Government agencies (i.e., employers) are not only familiar with the social networking phenomenon, they are actually paying attention to its implementation. If you’re job hunting in the Federal sector, it might be time to take down those frat party pics.