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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.
Sorry, but I think this is a big deal. If I had known in 1990 that all my postings to Usenet would be publicly available many years after the fact, I might have thought twice before posting some of the articles I did, but now there are some postings from me around, that I am ashamed of 16 years later.
I am pretty sure, I am not the only one this has happened to.
On the other hand...
I recently hired two guys based primarily on their online presence.
I was looking for a couple of people to do support. Both of them applied. I googled them. They both had blogs. Their blogs demonstrated that a) they could write well (their jobs involve providing support via email) b) that they had a bit of personality and c) that they were smart people, passionate about Linux (which is our focus).
I hired both these guys without ever meeting them face-to-face. Being able to google them, see what projects they've been involved in, get a feel for how they deal with other people (e.g. in mailing list posts, etc) helped me start getting a handle on them. These guys got their jobs over dozens of other candidates who had great resumes, but were 'invisible' on the web.
--
We're hiring Linux geeks
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?
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
There's a significant problem you're ignoring, namely when other people share the same name as you. My name is not extremely common, but a Google search on my name comes up with a lot of stuff that isn't me and could be very harmful to my reputation if it were. Even worse, the other person with my name is about the same age as I am, at least as far as I can tell from the pictures, so it's quite plausible that a potential employer could think that was me.
I tell my clients to run a Google Groups search for my last name and technology of their choice.
... I wish you good health and much prosperity,. Leonid S. Knyshov ...
... Mr. Knyshov appreciates your time spent reading this. ...
:-).
1000+ articles posted in my area of expertise.
Google itself links me to some seriously fun stuff. First link just happens to point to my Amazon profile. I consider that as VERY lucky as that's a page I can modify as I see fit.
Here is you will see when you search for "Knyshov" on Google:
Amazon.com: Profile For Leonid Knyshov: ReviewsLeonid Knyshov "World-class computer expert" (Fremont, CA USA) (REAL NAME)
www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/ A3P7EVPCSMPGI6?_encoding=UTF8 - 66k - Cached - Similar pages
Amazon.com: Profile for Leonid KnyshovLeonid S. Knyshov is a computer genius who is typically employed as a Sr. Network Systems Security
www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3P7EVPCSMPGI6 - 43k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.amazon.com ]
A few links below that, however, I am linked to insecure.org which shows my HP-UX exploit from 1997. That can be good or bad. Good - shows that I knew how to find original exploits 9 years ago. Bad - I don't actively advertise that. Overall, I consider that as a good link.
Then there is a link that connects me to the SF Raves community. That again can be good or bad. Good - I can modify that page as I see fit and it shows that I am not a bookworm. Bad - it links me with nightlife of San Francisco, which may provoke questions about possible recreational drug usage, which I do not do.
Overall, that's basically the key. If the information you post is good, it definitely enhances credibility. I tell my clients to look for me on the Internet. For some reason, my 1994-2000 newsgroups history is not visible, which is not necessarily a bad thing
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
My girlfriend played Wow and got a little too cozy with another player. With a little bit of Real World knowledge about him I was able to find out quite a bit about him and his immediate family.
Even dug up a picture that might be of him, she wasn't pleased when I said that as she had never been sent a picture. Seems they weren't that cozy after all.
I'll leave it up to the reader to determine what one can do with such information.
In this case i dumped her, and sent him a message in Wow telling him he should feel free to meet up with her. I've got no interest in her now anyway.
It was rather revealing to toss out information which she knew, but had no idea how I could have found out about. She probably thinks I trolled through all her email, but she seemed really curious as I suspect most of the information passed between them was via Ventrilo (voice chat).
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.
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
At least with government records, there's a certain amount of reliability associated with them. Also, if you have a date-of-birth or city or anything to narrow things down, you're less likely to confuse two people with the same name.
On the other hand, suppose you've been good about keeping your name off the web, but there's another person with the same name who has a bad reputation. How's the employer going to know that it's not really you, if there's not enough details to disprove it?
So background checks are one thing; using Google is completely different in terms of reliability.
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.
Not very long ago, I applied for a job doing computer support for a local community college. Everything went well, despite it being a rather "trying" experience, with multiple application forms to fill out, a couple of fairly extensive interviews and a hands-on proficiency test - but in the end, I was verbally offered a position. Then, 2 days later, I got another phone call, informing me that my hiring was being "put on hold" due to some new information that had come to light.
What happened was, I used to run a very popular computer bulletin board system. Almost 10 years ago, it was seized by the FBI under suspicion of copyright infringements occuring on it. After all of my equipment was held hostage for *2 years*, they decided to drop the whole case and give me everything back. A rather sheepish-faced federal agent actually came by my house after work with his station wagon filled up with all of my CDs, computers, monitors, etc. etc. and dropped it all over in my living room - apologizing for the whole incident (but still making me sign some type of waiver promising to absolve them of all responsibility, so I couldn't sue later). I thought this story was worthy of mention on my web site, since to this day, people occasionally ask me what ever happened to the BBS, etc. etc.
Well, the college apparently googled my name, found my web site, and read everything on it. (My BBS story wasn't exactly "top level" material on my site, so they had to click through at least 2 levels of menus and read 4 pages about it before they hit that part.) They were concerned about the incident, despite no charges ever being filed - and denied me employment based on it! (Only 2 days after the phone call telling me they were "reconsidering" hiring me, I got the standard rejection form letter in the mail, signed by the very guy I had just spoken to on the phone!)
Extremely irritating - because while, sure, I could just censor this info - I think it's a story worth telling. And furthermore, I'm not so sure I want to work for an employer who is that paranoid over something that speaks more about government's inefficiency and blundering than my own character.
But in the end, I was hired as I.T. Supervisor of a business paying considerably more than this community college anyway, so maybe everything happens for a reason after all.