Inadvertent Online Resumes Losing People More Job Opportunities
from the your-permanent-record dept
We've covered in the past how recruiters are now looking at online social network pages to determine whether or not someone is qualified for a job. While stories about government agencies using the Patriot Act to view your private Facebook profile for a job interview are completely bogus, it is quite likely that whoever is interviewing you knows a bit more about you than what's on that paper resume. Considering your digital record as your "inadvertent resume." In fact, a growing number of recruiters have admitted that they've eliminated job candidates, based on the "digital dirt" that was found about them. Of course, that could be problematic if you happen to have a name in common with someone who has done a lot of bad things online. Still, people need to be more aware of what their online record says about them. Someone recently told me that they were trying to recruit for a job opening, and he planned to find candidates not by advertising the job itself, but by putting together a list of bloggers who had a certain four or five blogs listed in their blogroll (Techdirt was one, apparently) -- allowing him to pre-qualify candidates who might fit the job he was trying to fill without calling for resumes. So, even when you're not officially looking for jobs, your online presence can be important.
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first!
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Re:
My online cock pics got me my last job!
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I didn't realize monitors could display images that small.
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Talking of pricks..
One of the great modern impediments to good business and a healthy employment economy are the pricks you'll find in a typical HR department.
There's something very creepy and disturbing about people who describe themselves as "people people" and are unqualified to do anything else in life except spout prejorative opinions about other peoples value.
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Re: Talking of pricks..
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But should that online presence even play a role in 'qualifying' a person for a job? I can understand if the job involved something of an online nature, but non-online jobs? Seems to me that employers want employes that tow the line and do not think for themselves.
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HR is the source of incompetence, yes..
Now as to the point of the article: I'm rather proud of my online history, having just gone back and read a large number of my Usenet postings from ten years ago. I made a few newbie mistakes, but I also made good points, raised interesting questions, answered thoughtfully and thoroughly when I could, and kept a sense of respect and humor at all times. If an employer were to find that, I don't think they'd come away with a diminished opinion of me.
The point is pretty clear: Make an easy-to-find online persona, using your real name and the email that appears on your resume, and conduct yourself impeccably. If you feel the need to behave in other ways, do so under a completely disconnected pseudonym.
How to manage friendships that straddle both identities is left as an exercise to the reader.
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Re: HR is the source of incompetence, yes..
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HR and upper management
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What a world we live...
Why is it that people insist on trying to find that one magic tell all about a person? I know people that dress like Marilyn Manson (sp?) but are respectful, calm, and very well mannered. By the same token I know people that dress like movie stars and are just as two-faced and fake as the characters said movie stars play.
How can anyone honestly believe that someone's online persona WILL ALWAYS be a fullly accurate representation of how they are offline. There's no way to prove it
Besides if good appearance = good reputation then lawyers would not be synonomous with well paid liar.
The point is pretty clear: Make an easy-to-find online persona, using your real name and the email that appears on your resume, and conduct yourself impeccably. If you feel the need to behave in other ways, do so under a completely disconnected pseudonym.
The only problem with that is its possible to have a common name with someone of questionable habits. All that would do is open you to have your good repution "borrowed" by someone of ill repute. I personally keep my online and offline lives a seperate as possible. And my job (or prospective jobs) would be the las place I'd give my online info to.
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don't care
jonh smith
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I get about 2 job offers a week...
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Re: Re:perspective
perspective when it's a thought
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This Can Work The Other Way Too
I recently interviewed with a business that does 99% of its sales on Ebay. While their feedback score was high, a Google search turned up several interesting tidbits like how they're being sued for trademark infringement. When I asked the CEO about this, he dismissed it as frivolous. I'm certain my asking may have contributed to my not being offered the job, but why shouldn't I ask? For all I know they might lose and I'd be out of a job in a year or two.
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almost all business decisions are made at random
so, be as cordial and as friendly as you can while still being honest, and if you aren't a good fit with their "culture" then find solace in the fact that you probably would have been miserable there if you had gotten the job under false pretenses.
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Re: Re:
> The long term trend over time has been for this place to just whine about DRM stuff 70% of the time.
Funny... for someone who likes to bash everyone here for not having advanced statistical skills, you can't even do a basic calculation. 70% huh?
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Re: Re:
And as a working example, here you are. Funny, that.
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heh, but then again
I think it is a bit unethical for a company to just use social network sites as a resume unless they ask for your information up front. After all, I know there are 23 people in my state with my name online according to Google, 12 of those have the same middle name, and there are 7 of them on My Space, one of them even lives in my town. Meaning, if I ever decide to go back to work I might have to explain things to company since 2 of those listed on My Space are real winners who do and say some stupid things.
Why check, you ask? Well I got some bad comments and such about things I supposedly said and supposedly did so I wanted to find out what was going on. Turned out one of the losers from My Space was perceived as being me.
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How to create jobs!!!!
Once you've created bad info for the aforementioned then create a gleaming myspace for yourself, ensuring that you include the space exploration and ideas for creating cheap gasoline in your content. Any HR head would be wrong not to hire you. YOU JUST LANDED A BIG ONE--THANK YOU MYSPACE!!!!!
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This is correct. Give the rest of the world a chance to catch up.
At the same time, we know that you can truly develop understanding with someone and make useful online relationships. The rest of the world doesn't understand that.
So which is it? Are they related or not? Basically the bottom line is they just don't understand. But they will. Expecting them to already would be nutty.
Sociologists observe that we have--and need--backstage personalities, people with whom we can let our guard down to give us relief from those for whom we perform. The assumption that someone's backstage behavior necessarily implies anything about their onstage performance is an unfortunately frequent mark of social unsophistication.
The problem with the internet is that both backstage and onstage personalities are in the same space. We respond by developing a more mature attitude where it is considered polite to ignore or discount someone's activities in a space that is none of your business, unless you are seeking to make it your business. Those who have not acquired this skill cannot, again, be expected to understand.
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What has you did!?!
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I'm a football player
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I agree with #4
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Re: I agree with #4
The HR people admitting to wasting company time doing this should be out there looking for work themselves.
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Other uses
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Um, are you guys nutz?
Example. search for my name, my history is aggregated and prior accomplishments and online achievements are instantly viewable.
http://www.zoominfo.com
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Duh...
Plus we (most of us online junkies) know that down to the most basic levels, everything can be tracked online. Don't be a fool and think otherwise.
IOW, don't post or write on a medium where you don't know the consequences of stuff. Whatever happened to keeping the asinine moments between you and your friends?
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Yes, clearly most people do not have an understanding of the complexity of personality and its manifestations as character and persona in different roles and settings.
Traditionally people have kept a strong separation between those "performed" and "uninhibited" states. Such is the basis for the "social farce" form of comedy. The problem is not that these spaces are merging, but, as so many seem to agree, that the psychologically unqualified dimwits inhabiting HR departments can't correctly infer useful (more to the point relevant)information about people by by taking a random sample of their statements.
They probably "feel clever" by checking up on people behind their backs, and I use that prejorative term with intent - behind their backs meaning without permission and in an underhand way, because lets not pretend they are being fully honest. What they fail to realise is that this information is misleading in a quite profound way.
There is an old English saying. "A spy never hears good of themself"
What this means is that those who engage in dirt digging, covert surveillance, and generally grubbing about the corners of other peoples lives, usually find out unpleasant things. What they find is a reflection of their own unpleasantness. Their subconscious guides their expectations, and because most people in HR are trying to eliminate candidates they are, even without knowing it consiously, looking for bad things.
The sad ironies underlying it all are threefold.
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