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Beware Your Online Presence
Mz6 wrote to mention an article in the NY Daily News stating that an increasing number of employers are Googling their prospective employees during the interview/hiring process. From the article: "'A friend of mine posted a picture of me on My Space with my eyes half closed and a caption that suggests I've smoked something illegal,' says Kluttz. While the caption was a joke, Kluttz now wonders whether the past two employers she interviewed with thought it was so funny. Both expressed interest in hiring Kluttz, but at the 11th hour went with someone else."
Apparently it's this one.
9 405c.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/401069p-33
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Not entirely paranoid. I thought it was a well-known fact that employers Googled people when considering hiring them. I keep this in mind whenever I post anything that links me to my real name, though.
He's a she.
Yup, there it is (scroll down).
http://www.myspace.com/comeoncolleen
If her employers checked her myspace, they most certainly would have not hired her.
Comments from her myspace:
obviously (FTA): "hi, i'm colleen kluttz and i just smoked the. best. weed. everrrrrrr..."
"Best host ever! I like the part when you shake your boobies."
"pot brownies, colleen! POT BROWNIES!!!"
"if you lived here, i would have to quit my job and become a full time hang over nurse."
"i'd like to report that i just opened my purse at work and found a can of PBR inside. livin' large!!!" - PBR being Paps Blue Ribbon beer by the way
"chris's eyes = patriotic. stoned white and blue. come visit."
And the profile picture she picked herself that has her giving the finger to a camera doesn't help either.
If the incident in question (someone posted a pic of her looking high) was isolated, an employer might overlook it. But these comments suggest a heavy drinker/pot smoker. I personally don't care if someone drinks/smokes weed while not on the job, but these things in conjunction with the attitude that is expressed on her myspace is something more.
Medical records are supposed to be protected in the U.S. (cf. HIPAA), and any employer who tried to obtain your medical records illegally would be in pretty big trouble if they got caught.
Court records are another matter. If your psychiatrist made a report to the court concerning your progress in a shoplifting matter, that might be part of public record if the judge didn't have it sealed. But in that case, your criminal record is going to be a much bigger deal than the psychiatrist report.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Medical Records? Ever heard of HIPAA? If you had even the shred of evidence that you were turned down for a job because they had medical information about you contained in medical records, then you would own that company. It would mean that somehow they obtained the information illegally and someone disclosed the information illegally. The criminal liability for disclosure of a medical record is in the neighborhood of about $250,000 for each offense. Plus punitive damages. You could probably sue the company that has the record, the company that obtained it to the company the doctor that disclosed it (assuming they used an P.I.). And I wouldn't sign an agreement stating that an employer could have medical records unless there was a valid reason. Anybody in the business of medical records is paranoid of disclosing a medical record. Oh, by the way, under HIPAA, you own your medical records. Depending on what is in your medical record and why they turned you down you could sue for a HIPAA violation, ADA and all sorts of discrimination statutues. Frankly, I don't know if I would want work at a place that was using medical records as to exclude people.
However, under some circustainces I can understand the use of a credit record. For example if you are going to be handling sensative information or you are going to be doing finanaces, then it makes sense check the credit record. However, if there is no criminal record or even the hint of fraud exclusion because someone has a bad credit record would not be fair -- just because someone fell on hard times (there is no way telling why their credit record may be bad) means they won't be a good employee.
Frankly, I don't care if a potential employer knows information about me -- I don't have anything to hide. If they don't like my political views, my credit history, medical history, etc., then oh well. It probably isn't exactly the job for me in the first place. If they want the information, then they can ask me, and I'll provide it, freely.
(To any future employer, feel free to ask me the information you want and I'll give it to you straight up.)
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
You can remove old google groups and usenet posts from Google's archives with this page. http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ans wer=8380
I don't know about other slashdotters but I could have used this maybe when I was first starting out on the Source (forerunner to Compuserve) with my Apple II and Hayes 300 bps modem (you can read the words as they roll in).. But that was 25 years ago. To say this is common knowledge is an understatement. The problem is nobody gets taught this shit in elementary, middle or high school. I've watched what I typed online at way back to BBS days and as a matter of course google myself once in a while. Everyone is googling, so if you don't you are just going to voluntarily lose an edge. What is scary now is the same thing will be happening with video, and worse will come when ubiquitous video gets ubiquitously tagged and stored. We are just at a point in time between back then and that future time. Only big difference is myspace becoming popular among teenagers, ascent of google, and massively litigous society being warped by doublethinking neocons. I think that's all I want to say with this login.