Slashdot Mirror
Judging You By the Online Company You Keep
theodp writes "Network analysis uses data about your social network interactions to make assumptions and predictions about your behavior. The Economist notes the upside for companies looking to sell products. But don't forget about the downside, warns Adrian Chen, of living in a world where network analysis is used by financial firms to determine risky borrowers by looking at social ties, or by Internet businesses to determine which customers are more equal than others (nice to see Microsoft's back on the forefront of some tech!). So, did Mom envision Social Network Analytics when she gave you that you-are-the-company-you-keep lecture?"
I'm a PHP and Rails entrepreneur and all of my friends and associates are entrepreneurs too. I'm glad to be networked to them using twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and flickr. We've been working in this Starbucks since about 2002 but I know that sometime soon our ideas will take off and we'll all be millionaires.
There is nothing wrong about doing good due diligence before lending money. Maybe the economy would be in better shape if we had more of this going on.
From now on, I'm going to use a pseudonym here. If my employer knew I read slashdot, he'd probably expect me to fix the computers around the office or something.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I always search for any prospective employee online these days. I'm not sure whether this is right or wrong - it's just I don't want some problem around the corner that could have been predicted. That said, I am yet to find anything of interest on anyone... suggesting that so long as you are sensible with your online presence then you're probably ok. I do think having a social network is a plus - but material such as "I torture animals", and "omg, my crack habit is way out of control" would probably weigh somewhat negatively. I think it is all a bit over-hyped - at the end of the day, if someone is good then a few over-the-top parties aren't going to make a big difference ont he employability front. As for insurers, I am surprised, acturaries are supposed to be switched on and I fail to see how a very selective subsample, the online community, can be used meaningfully in calculating risk.
Ironic given that you apparently do your programming in MS Basic.
I don't believe that is what people are arguing against. The question is if it actually qualifies as due diligence. Would you really give an atta boy to your local bank when they refused to loan you money because you sometimes talk to that ne'er do well (in their eyes) Johnny down the street?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I don't think that many right-leaning managers would be able to hire somebody like him after seeing his Facebook profile. His blatant homosexuality would probably trigger the guilt those managers feel regarding their own repressed homosexuality, and they just wouldn't hire him, although skill-wise he was clearly the best candidate for the job. At least left-leaning managers tend to be more open to individualism among their employees.
Left-leaning, right-leaning ... those are just words.
... as long as you don't rub his or her face in it. Remember, that employer has to worry about how you are going to affect the other people who work for him or her, and will also be concerned about what his boss thinks about who he hires. Furthermore, no matter how valuable you may think you are, how much you believe an employer should overlook your particular peculiarities, in today's job market odds are he has another resume just as impressive as yours sitting on his desk, from someone who made a much better first impression.
... and that's just foolish. The law says that you cannot be discriminated against for certain attributes, true, but says nothing at all about most other things. Fact is, if you behave or appear too far outside the norm, you are going to limit your employability in most cases. A prospective employer doesn't have to tell you that it's your sexual preferences, your body modifications, your ink, your purple striped hair, the drunken photos of you on your Facebook page, or indeed anything that contributed to his decision to hire someone else. He just won't call you back for that second interview. Look, that's just the way it is, and denying it is like spittin' into the wind.
What it comes down to is that you have no idea what prejudices a potential employer has. You can't, so it's always best to play things close to the vest. Matter of fact, that's good advice even after you're hired: just go to work, do your job well, and then go home to your private life. You're not being paid to express your inner self: you're being paid to do a job. Truth is, though, your average employer is not going to give a damn about your bizarro personal life, whether you like your asshole reamed by throbbing meaty cocks, that you're into hamster-stuffing, that you're a heavy-duty partier, or any of the myriad other oddball things people are into
What's troubling a lot of job seekers nowadays is that they're finding out their online presence has already made that impression for them. Is that right or wrong? Well, your online presence is largely your own responsibility: you put it out there, and you can't really blame an interviewer for trying to find out all they can about a candidate. Keep in mind that resumes, job interviews, and for that matter Facebook pages provide only limited information to a potential employer. Thus, it behooves you, the candidate, to be very, very careful with your presentation. Think twice about what you post about yourself. It may very well come back to haunt you.
Some people that feel they have the right to be free to express their true selves wherever they may be. To a great extent, that is true in the U.S. However, those same people often think they should be equally free of other people's opinions of them
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.