Online Nicknames Google better than Real?

An anonymous reader writes "I was recently laid off, and during several of the interviews looking for a new job as a mid level IT manager, I was asked "So, I can just Google your name and find some of your work?" The answer is "yes", but searching for my name doesn't really bring up many results compared to searching for my online nickname which I have been using for about a decade. I am very tempted just to put that nickname on my resume. Is the professional, albeit technical, world ready for this step? Where should I put it? At the top or somewhere in the body?" And the other problem- how hard will it be to get a job when your nickname is something ridiculous. Boy I wish I would have thought of that in 95 ;)

Comments

They followed my email address

[Bandman]

My current employer googled my email address, found my LiveJournal and read the previous two years or so of what I'd been writing.

It actually helped them decide to choose me, since there are lots of questions you can't ask in an interview, but reading a LJ gives a more accurate representation of a person, anyway.

Re:They followed my email address

[CastrTroy]

I got a nasty email from ebay when I signed up with ebay@kibbee.ca. Seems they think that simply having the word ebay in your email address makes them think you are trying to impersonate somebody who actually works at ebay. If their users are dumb enough to fall for that one, they have bigger problems than people with suspicious email addressed.

You got asked if they could google? I didn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to a job interview and got asked questions that could only have come from a google search. Very dangerous given that my name is relatively common and there is no clear way to know how much they read and attributed to me really was written by me. How much di they read that wasn't brought up in the interview for me to confirm or refute?

Pretty common in the Perl community.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of people in the wider Perl community who are basically only known by their online nick name.

One of the most proliic of such people is chromatic. Although it's his real name, brian d foy is also well known.

Re:Only let them see what you want

[nahdude812]

One time we had an applicant who gave us a few direct links to his stuff on his resume. Unfortunately (for him) some of his stuff had a pretty unique nickname attached to it (I seriously doubt two people would have had the same handle). Googling that handle helped us find other info on him. Including a blog entry from 3 months back talking about how he was just starting to learn a core technology which was *completely* necessary for the position we were hiring for (ColdFusion - don't shoot me, I just worked there). Problem was that his resume listed 6 years of experience with it, which his blog totally disagreed with.

Digging deeper it turned out that some of what he had listed as example applications that he claimed he wrote were just someone else's pre-canned scripts which he made some tweaks to before putting online. We didn't hire him, but it didn't stop him from applying with us several more times. I wanted to interview the guy and ask him why his blog and his resume disagreed, but I guess my boss just figured it was a waste of time toying with someone who lied to us out of the gate. Thing is we didn't need someone with 6 years of experience, we actually would have preferred someone with 3 months of CF experience since we were trying to hire someone to get the many day-to-day small scale maintenance work (static web content updates and the like) off the shoulders of the core application developers.

It all dependfs on the job

[houghi]

What I do online is irrelevant to what I do as a profession and I try to keep them seperated as much as possible.

However I can imagine that it IS relevant for some, especialy if you are a webdesigner or a developer, highly involved in OSS projects. I would just add them as past experience.

e.g. I have developed/designe XYZ under the alias foo@example.com

However you must also provide some proof that you actualy ARE that alias, I would say.

this can only count against you

[petes_PoV]

If you publish online information about your current (or past) job, that tells any future employers a lot about your sense of discretion and how you treat information that may not be overtly confidential, but certainly has no place in a public forum. Certainly the interviewer would be less than happy to find information about their company (or even this interview) on your next blog entry.

If you simply can't hold it in, at least make sure that no individuals or organisations can be identified.

On a resume, or in an interview, the potential employer is interested in what you can do for them, not your personal blog or your views on personal/irrelevant topics (unless they would be incompatible with the position you are interviewing for).

As a consequence, I can see almost no situations where an employee can write about their current or past work in a way that will not compromise their future employment prospects - leave online links out of your CV

Re:Glad I thought ahead.

[TobyRush]

I've got a reasonably unique name, and I decided a while back that using it as my online name is a good way to keep myself honest and avoiding the temptation to do something stupid.

I say "reasonably unique," of course... there is actually another person I know of with my same first and last name; he's the CEO of an RFID company in Kansas. I've always thought of contacting him, but I was actually born in Kansas (moved away when I was 3) and there's that tiny fear of finding out that he's me.

Re:WTF ?

[aurispector]

What you do in your spare time really can reflect on your desirability as an employee. I have dealt with extremely productive people who did beautiful quality work but were utterly unreliable, difficult to work with and generally not people you want to have to deal with on a daily basis. In these cases either drugs or possibly psychological issues were often at heart and ultimately made it impossible for them to function over the long term.

Any mature person can tell you that you really don't want naked bong party pictures floating around. Unfortunately young people are by definition not mature.

A silly online nick really would not be an issue for me as an employer provided you DON'T get the goatse guy. It't the content that counts.

The older I get, the more *I* am interviewing *them*. If you have a sense of humor and indulge in some silliness on your offtime you really shouldn't be embarassed. OTOH googling your name produces the goatse picture, you really ought to consider a name change.

Re:Don't I know it...

[digitalcowboy]

I really am embarassed by this nickname now, and wish i could change it, but its used in SO many damn places, and its my main domainname, and its my email address everywhere, and its embarassing when people ask for my email address on the phone or whatever, like when i'm applying for jobs.... oh man.

What was I thinking back in 94??

I get where you're comin' from with the nickname. Don't sweat it too much.

I'm hiring and in that consideration I would place your Slashdot nickname in higher esteem than any degree from anywhere (except maybe MIT - and I can't afford them people). College degrees are bought with money and earned by being a sycophant. They mean nothing to me. More often than not, they'll count against you when interviewing with me. I'm interested in raw intelligence, hunger for constant learning and problem solving abilities.

Before I rant, let me get to my point: the world is a-changing. They'll get over it. I guess. They're gonna have to.

In high school, I had one really cool teacher. As one example, there was a time when a bunch of dopers were making fun of me, during class. He said, "Laugh it up, fools. Someday you'll work for him. If you don't, your kids will. Geeks will rule the world."

He was right. It's different now.

(I graduated HS in '88 - before anyone really knew who Gates was.)

Re:Online alias vs. real name

[f_raze13]

So, does it usually help or hurt your job prospects when your interviewer sees the links to porn at the bottom of the page?

I mean, I don't think you can get a job based on the quality of your smutty smutty chicks links.

Re: MultiLayered Personas

[TaoPhoenix]

Unique is good.

A profound clash on the net is between "goofing off" and building net credibility. For the occasional snark comment, that's what AC is for. I have put a fair amount of effort into this "brand name" to ensure that it's reasonably respected.

However, I still wouldn't actively disclose it to any employer. I consider it in the realm of private research mixed with entertainment. If an employer needs to know what my successes at work are - let's have them talk to a previous employer! A former manager who liked you is a far better reference than miscellanea on the net.