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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."
Don't use MySpace. Trust me, we'll all be better off when that fad has passed.
He sounds a little paranoid, everybody gets passed over for jobs once in a while. Submit your resume elsewhere, life goes on.
I think this is made out to be more of a big deal than it really is. It's quite simple to prevent this from happening to you. Post "good stuff" under your real name, perhaps linked to a professional-sounding alias, and post other crap under another alias that you never link to your real name.
Think about it. Wouldn't you like to know "as much as possible" about a person you are about to hire? Checking a real name on Google is, from that point of view, almost as natural as calling former employers to find out how you performed there (and why you quit). The "trick" is basically to use a alias when posting "stoned-looking" pictures.. It's easy to do a search for the name on the application, it's much harder to find out what the person applying actually has done online if he/she only use aliases and fake names (and other e-mail address than the one used on the application). Oh btw, unless it's obvious, a "home page" where you brag about law violations, drug use and tell the world that you have a political view that's likely to be viewed as "not very politically correct" also don't help you much..
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
There's nothing especially wrong or insidious about googling a prospective employee. I'd do it.
The larger problem is that not everyone realizes that the internet is *public*, not private, and that what you post online has the potential to stay around for a very long time.
If you don't want it googled, don't put it up. If your friend puts it up, tell them to take it down.
On the other hand, any employer who would refuse to hire someone based off of humorous content in a blog or on a personal webpage (or even due to radical political/religious views) is probably ignoring a large pool of good employees. A smart employer will realize that even clever, hardworking people look stoned sometimes.
What's in a Sig?
When I search my real name on Google, I'm continually amazed at how horribly out of date and esoteric the information is.
.fstab file on a LinuxPPC installation 6 years ago, I was vehemently anti-Windows at least as far back as 1999 and I used to watch Babylon 5 rather religiously during its original run. Since then I've stopped using my real name outside of personal communications because I saw that just this sort of thing would become a problem in the years to come.
Any employers will find that I had an interest in fixing an
I'm a firm believer in passive anonymity. I won't go to great lengths to hide who I really am, and have no problem with people I'm conversing with knowing my real name, but I make sure that any comments of mine end up archived under a pseudonym. Considering HR people are looking for applicants with 15 years of experience in Windows XP, I don't really trust them to do the mental math necessary to establish that the questionable rant of mine from 1995 they've taken issue with, was posted by me while I was still in middle school.
You didn't properly specify, however.
Would you hire someone who possibly used drugs >1 year ago, recreationally? Would it take 5 years?
The only reason I would ask is that I know of people (potheads) that smoke regularly, and I also know of people that have not touched the stuff in years.
Drug use in the workplace is a no no in my book, however. That'd be just as bad as sleeping while on the job....
OK, it's worse...
Karnal
I work with a lot of people that watch television that are completely useless. I know that all people who watch television aren't completely useless, but I personally wouldn't hire anyone who watches television, just in case.
Whiskey
Tango
Foxtrot
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
Honestly, I can't see a girl having a great time, then googling you and finding out you're a geek, then going, "Well darn, I found an nice, kind, witty, entertaining and all-around great guy. Too bad he's good with computers". Would you really want to date someone like that?
Right.. because MySpace is where potential employers look for information. "Let's see, Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. Jason.. AHA!"
Or did you put a link to your profile in your resume?
Here's an idea: If you're wondering why an employer decided not to hire you, you could try asking them instead of Slashdot. I know it's hard to believe, but there might actually be more qualified people applying for the same jobs. It sucks getting passed over, and occasionally there could be illegitimate reasons, but for the most part you win some and you lose some. In the long run, the most productive course of action is probably to just keep looking, and tell your friend to take down the picture if you're paran^h^h^h^h^hconcerned.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Well then obviously they're doing you a service. They're saving you time in a pointless relationship. Do you want to marry some idiot who only cares about how rich you are? I mean, if someone's only going to marry me for money, or is going to be incredibly stereotyped against geeks, even attractive, personable ones they would otherwise date, I don't want to date them, and I assume you don't either.
Who wants a shallow bitch like that anyway?
> Assume anything sent electronically can be read by someone else and will NEVER be taken off the web
Yep, that is clear *now*.
It was not so clear in, say, 1984. Which was before the web, but not before usenet, and there are usenet archives going back that far.
Also, in those days, almost everyone posted under their real names. Home net access was not common, so almost everyone was online through their employer or university, and accounts were under real names.
It's not that I ever said anything I really wouldn't want seen. It's just that back then, most people weren't in the mindset of thinking about online communications as something that might be archived forever and searchable 20+ years later by absolutely anybody for any reason. Search engines didn't exist yet!
It's quite simple to prevent this from happening to you. Post "good stuff" under your real name, perhaps linked to a professional-sounding alias, and post other crap under another alias that you never link to your real name.
As others have already pointed out, it's difficult to make sure that every person in the world who has a photo of you won't post something that isn't very flattering. But even ignoring that for the moment, what consistutes "good stuff" in your mind is likely to change. Suppose you are a first-year student in grad school and you post something under your real name stating that your dream is to become a professor. Very noble, very "good stuff". Fast-forward several grueling years when you are burned out. Your goals have changed and academia doesn't sound so great. You start interviewing for companies and tell them during the interview that you have a strong interest in tackling today's technical problems.
After you leave, the people you interviewed with start googling around to see what they can dig up on you and come across this thing you wrote many years earlier. Now there's doubt in their mind. Are you looking at an industrial position because you didn't get a postdoc? Are you just looking to make some big bucks in the private sector for five years before returning to what you love -- academia? Maybe I trust you and realize that your priorities have changed. How do I know they won't change back? You wrote so eloquently about the fact that your life-long dream was to become a professor a few years ago. How much do I want to bet that you won't dream this way again?
And what about posting your politicial, philosophical, or personal beliefs on the web? You write a well-thought-out essay about a woman's right to choose and your pro-life potential-employer finds it. You may think that's "good stuff" but your employer sure doesn't. You're making this way too simple. The article brings up a very good point. You are unwise to dismiss it as "someone else's problem" so easily, my friend.
GMD
watch this
I don't have an extremely common name, but it's common enough. When I google myself, none of the results on the first page are me. One of them has the same middle initial, and one of them even has a similar bio (birthplace and childhood). Someone might find me if they search my name combined with other associations, but not easily. If I google my name and my university I find another (more recent) student with my name.
Unless you have a very unique name or you're dumb enough to put your full name in your public myspace profile, you probably don't have a lot to worry about.
Seems like with a little bit of work, you could set up a blog and
net presence that would make any employer jump to hire you.
If course it's all fiction, but with the proper links and all
you could make it pretty believable.
Enterprising individuals could do this for you for a fee.
So for the employers who think they are being so crafty,
there's a way for the unscrupulous job seeker to keep one step ahead.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
Honestly, I can't see a girl having a great time, then googling you and finding out you're a geek, then going, "Well darn, I found an nice, kind, witty, entertaining and all-around great guy. Too bad he's good with computers".
The problem is not the posts about computers... it's the posts discussing Star Trek trivia.
Or, much worse, pictures of the guy in costume at some kind of SF/Fantasy convention...
It's things like this that are piling up that are making people less fun, less interesting, more paranoid and a shitty society. We spend more time worrying that what we say may offend someone, say or do something that might "not look good to potential employers". That we bottle everything up, and then start shooting people to let it out. Poking fun at someone, or having a wild night out and taking a picture used to not cost people their jobs. Granted it's the internet and it would be better to keep things in your house amoungst your closest friends. We're in a state of fear in this country over things coming from all sides. There's places in this country that want cameras in people's apartments. Now you have to watch yourself all the time or some moron in a suit will find out about it and fire you or not hire you. They're getting too much control over everyone's lives.
He said "go to myspace, google. yahoo, MSN, hotjobs, anything that a potential employer may use, and make sure that anything that shows up is accurate"
If someone online is posting false info on you, then call the service and demand its removal, hire a lawyer if necessary.
Simple solution: Educate your friend(s) on on-line privacy issues and teach them basic security skills like using http://gnupg.org/ to encrypt your e-mail while you are at it.
Uh, that dosn't sound very simple at all.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Most smart employers will do a backround check on their employees. I know I would if I were the employer.
Consider the fact that Google might sell your information to employers, and it's quite clear that employers already know as much as they need to know about you.
I don't know if the fact that you've smoked marijuana once or twice is going to make a difference, because most people in the world have tried it before. I think your lifestyle DOES matter to employers. I think your culture DOES matter to employers. I think if you want to work in certain places you have to adapt to the lifestyle and culture of those places.
So while I may think that judging a person on one issue is not very intelligent, there entire profile of a persons personality type and lifestyle does show if the person will be a good worker, or what kinda worker they'll be. For certain jobs being a marijuana smoker is a plus, if you want to be a musician, an artist, a writer, or just an innovator type. If you want to be an engineer, a manager, or deal with mission critical decisions then you don't need to mess with any drugs of any sort. So a decision maker needs to be clean and an innovator needs to be high, at least some of the time.
I have spent quite a bit of time on this issue as I have some experience in this area.
Without going into details, (but I know the slashdot crowd can find it, just with a whois on my domains) I was once accused of being a VAMPIRE in a court of law.
Cute, stupid, and it didn't really work for the defendant in the case.
The media had a blast with it. I was on CNN's legal section... I made "News of the odd" The Fax News, several papers, and Fark.
The problems began when a local reporter found my personal website, and went hunting. She found a list of "Pagan buttons and bumpersticker" joke that I thought were humorous and posted them out of context in the article.
Imagine my (very religious) grandmother looking at the paper and finding out that
1) I was pagan (admittedly, my grandfather who was a preacher knew, but asked that I never tell her)
2) I was a Vampire (at least according to some people)
and 3) That I was apparently a fan of throwing Christians to lions! (not true)
Problem is, it never goes away. Someone will ask about it from time to time, it comes up in interviews, and just in places I never expect it.
It is somewhat amusing for me... but can you imagine what would happen if someone were to link your name to something really nasty?
I wrote an article on the need for a "media blackout" type of period in regards to recent child porn arrests, where alledged child porn was found on someones machine by a 3rd party.
Inevitably the media learns of the situation (happened with a Best Buy tech who was snooping someones machine in Tennessee)and reports a name and the fact of the arrest.
Whether the individual is guilty or innocent no longer matters at that point. His (or her) name is indelibly linked to "(insert name) arrested on child porn allegations".
Your life would be OVER.
Now I think people who deal with that stuff are sick and need help and I am not defending them in any way! But I do think we are not far from a period where people are going to start suing to have their name scrubbed from certain places on the net. Good luck to them, because getting something off the net is like getting pee out of a pool.
Or was it "Un-ringing a bell"?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
How the hell is that justice? Taking advantage of gold-digging whores is (or should be) a universal freedom!
I have the same attitude as in life generally. If you can't put up with my online presence and failed to acknowledge that it's an "online presence ONLY" while judging me solely on my online presence, I don't think I will want to work with you in "person".
"It is just the internet." - anonymous cow. moo
This is how I see it, If I have something to say, or do, that I am asshamed of, then I need to fix that problem. If I say something on slashdot, or myspace.com, I stand behind it. If someone has objections to it, they will probably not get along with me during the course of my work for them. If I feel it, I say it. My slashdot, and Myspace accounts are VERY easily found with my name, and vice versa.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
And good Lord! Have you been to her MySpace site? Take a look at some of those pictures of he flipping the camera off or "partying hardy". He site probably only "sealed the deal" on a decision already made 5 minute into the interview.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In about ten years, there will be millions of regretful twenty- and thirty-somthings, particularly women. The regret will be tied to two things: pictures on MySpace and tattoos. Both are permanent. Both seem cool/sexy at eighteen and both are neither at thirty.
I'm thankful that the trends of my youth involved only bad haircuts and cheesy clothing.
This is what the feds have been doing to their employees for years, you want a job with the FBI they go and talk to your friends to find out what they think of you. Ever wonder why Enron went bust and people are suing the management and some employees are screwed out of a lot of money but no major investment firm lost much if anything at all and nobody is suing any of them for investing in Enron? They invest in lots of stuff to hedge on enrons but people in the industry knew they were a turkey. You do research and make better decisions. Plenty of normal people lose money on shitty investments like that but rich people generally don't because they can pay for more research to be done.
30 years ago, you could smoke pot like nobody's business, clean up for a few months, lie at an interview and pass a drug test and nobody knows the difference, now kids put that shit on the web, well more people are doing more research and it's becoming much cheaper, if I just google you and see your blog and your drug history, guess what, I might not hire you either. Joke or no joke and that's just the way I am. Society is that way too, you go to jail or prison ad you might be asked about that at your next job. You ever get a sex conviction (be it a plea for "date rape" or sexual harassment type stuff which is a lot more common than you ever might think) and you might have to register and in some states the community can resist you and even deny you residency even though you've "paid your debt to society" (really, if that's going to keep following you around, maybe we shouldn't let them out of prison... and on the other side, don't even think that it's not creating another socioeconomic divide between the communities that are rich enough to have the time and resources to track sex offenders and the ones that are poorer and cannot and thus end up allowing sex offenders to reside.)
Basically, if you take privacy seriously at all, you might want to reconsider how much participation you do in some of the social structures. Worse, google and archive and what-have-you will capture your internet transgressions for ever. That's really what it comes down to, I used to be a cipherpunk back in the day, tor this and anonymous remailers that mean nothing, if you don't want to have your online life recorded, don't have an online life.
Wow, you're one insecure motherfucker!
Probably the best gift you could give a son or daughter is to give him/her a very common first and last name i.e. John Smith or Jane Smith. Obscurity by information overload seems like the easiest way to protect one's reputation.
But you most certainly can't speak in public without being held accountable, since normally anyone can see who you are.
You miss my point entirely. In general, I am heavily pro-civil-liberties. In this case, however, the "liberty" is illusory, and I think the price is too high to pay for a pretend benefit. There isn't really any anonymity on the Internet; there never has been. It's just a matter of how much effort is required to track you down.
Moreover, I don't know where you get the idea that holding people accountable for their actions is somehow fascist and totalitarian, but apparently you need to go back and study politics from the beginning again to learn what the long words mean. Indeed, holding people accountable for their actions seems to be one of the hallmarks of civilised society, and the foundation of every legal system in the modern world. Why do you think the Internet should be available as a tool for those who would seek to circumvent the normal rule of law?
Society will be much better if we discuss controversial issues freely and openly, rather than in secretive groups behind closed doors. That is what ultimately leads to many of the problems society has faced historically, and continues to face today. And people should support the causes they believe in, loudly and vocally, so their voice actually counts for more than an anonymous mark contributing to a tally in some so-called representative's log book.
All this messing around with pseudo-anonymity doesn't really help: the few people in the world who might benefit in theory, and who are often mentioned by advocates of on-line anonymity around these parts, rarely have the freedom to speak freely that those advocates think they do anyway. Meanwhile, several of the most damaging crimes that exist today are increasing dramatically in frequency, thanks to the shield provided by the Internet and in particular its international scope.
Would you claim that any state that has a police force to enforce the collective will of the people, as expressed through a reasonably representative political system, is totalitarian and fascist? If not, why do you think the Internet should remain essentially outside the law?
On the contrary. Democracy is already dying, courtesy of Bush, Blair, and their ilk. The only way to restore the balance of power to the people of their countries is to conduct genuinely open debate among the people, to have them inform and educate their peers where they can, and to promote an honest an exchange of views. That'll never happen until people who care have the courage to put their name to what they believe in, no matter how many almost-anonymous posts they make on the Internet.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
ummmmmmmmm... if I was a employer I would look at myspace, prolly the best way to get to know someone really.
People control their own myspace page, so if you have pictures of yourself looking high on marijuana on your myspace page then it's your own fault for leaving it up there.
You can delete any comments people make about you on your own page, so if i saw someone's page and it had comments about them getting high I would assume they want the entire world to know they're a pothead.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
But what happens if you have the same name and surname as someone else ?
Myself, I have a fairly common portuguese name. And to add to this, I wear a
surname that was very common in the seventies when I was born. So my name is
quite common.
In the company I work for example, there are two people with the same name
as me. And one day, one of my friends told me that a guy with the same family
name and surname had created a web page repertoring most of us, our location
and what we did in life !
So what happens if someone googles for your name and surname and finds
information and/or posts from someone else than you ?
Think about it. Wouldn't you like to know "as much as possible" about a person you are about to hire?
Not really.
If I was an employer, only two things would really concern me. One, the candidates competance and skill at performing the required labour, and two, the amount of compensation the candidate was willing to perform the labour for.
I really don't care if; you go out every night goofing off with your buddies, have a myspace account with silly pictures, vote for another political party, have an unusual sexual orientation, are religious, have extra curricular activities, can sing or dance, eat parsnips, use black pens, build rockets, watch anime etc, etc, etc....
As long as you can do the job you get paid to do, there isn't a whole lot else that concerns me. Maybe I'd have some limits. Clearly anything untoward done on company time is grounds for dismissal. Probably murdering someone outside office hours would make me think again about having you on company premises. But realistically, I not going to waste my time or money googling you on the internet, and if I found any HR person had done the same, they would quickly find their job vacant.
And a note to employees, if you work, or are looking to work for a company that does this; leave. Walk away now and never look back. You can do a hell of a lot better. Employment isn't bonded labour. It's about you selling your skills to someone who needs them. Anything else is a waste of your time.
May the Maths Be with you!
You just have to be able to handle someone making more money if they are worth more then you.
I used to think this way, but there's another factor to consider: Whether or not they are worth more than you isn't necessarily related to whether or not you think they're worth more than you, and neither are necessarily related to whether your boss thinks they're worth more than you. So what you should say is: You just have to be able to handle someone making more money even if you think they're not worth as much as you.
Public posting of salary data can create a great deal of completely unnecessary resentment and the ensuing problems. It also tends to force employers into a model of paying based on easily-verifiable measures, such as seniority, rather than the more flexible and generally more accurate subjective judgement of a good manager.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Dude, you do realize that you overstepped the boundaries of overprotective, jealous boyfriend and went straight into creepy stalker land, right? You tracked down personal information on a person that you feared she might have been interested in, flaunted this in front of her, and then "[left] it up to the reader to determine what one can do with such information."
Next, "you dumped HER" (I'm really hoping for her sake that this is a lie and she had the sense to dump you), you messaged the other person (who you give no indication of knowing personally) to say that he can have her (leaving the two of the them with a good story about her crazy ex to bond over), and then you post something showing how much you glory in the private information you collected about her behind your back by spying on their conversations.
I honestly pity any girl that you next set your sights on. Get help. Get serious psychiatric help before you hurt somebody or leave yourself doomed for a serious of failed relationship because you have a serious combination of trust issues, possessiveness, and vindictiveness combined with a lack of empathy to see how your actions would affect another person.
(Posting AC because the last thing I want is some crazy, vindictive stalker after me.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Maybe something similar will eventually operate here? Once more and more personal material becomes available, and people begin to see just how much misleading, mistaken, malicious, and downright false material there is on the web, maybe they'll learn not to take any of it as read.
Meanwhile, I guess we'll all have to be careful...
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