Student and graduate Facebook users can rest easy, three in four employers don’t use social networking sites as recruitment tools.

Personnel Today reports a survey of more than 220 HR professionals showed just 27 percent did trawl sites such as Facebook or Bebo during the hiring process.

The findings by law firm Charles Russell will be welcome news to online social networkers who Milkround.com revealed normally used their profiles for connecting to friends rather than tailoring them to get a job, but also undermines suggestions an online profile could be the “new CV”.

Among the employers most like to go online to check candidates’ profiles, were those in the media, professional services and finance industries with 35 percent of HR bosses admitting to it.

The charity and retail industries were least likely to log on to social networking sites to screen applications, just eight and seven percent doing so respectively.

Find a graduate job on Milkround.com though our My Dream Job Facebook application: add the application now.