Slashdot Mirror
Colleges Help Students Fix Their Online Indiscretions
A growing number of colleges are providing graduating students tools to improve their online image. The services arrange for positive results on search engine inquiries by pushing your party pictures, and other snapshots of your lapsed judgement off the first page. Syracuse, Rochester and Johns Hopkins are among the schools that are offering such services free of charge. From the article: "Samantha Grossman wasn't always thrilled with the impression that emerged when people Googled her name.
'It wasn't anything too horrible,' she said. 'I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren't of me, things I wouldn't want associated with me.'
So before she graduated from Syracuse University last spring, the school provided her with a tool that allowed her to put her best Web foot forward. Now when people Google her, they go straight to a positive image — professional photo, cum laude degree and credentials — that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York."
I don't know what she's talking about. First thing I see if that evil Newton killer's image.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Facebook is one example of a site that has a crappy policy that only allows you to have one profile. It makes sense to have two social media profiles, one for your personal life which you share with friends, post your party pictures and aren't afraid to write whatever you want, and one for your professional life, where you add coworkers and talk about work.
Yet Facebook and other sites are forbidding this, making people put everything in one pot. It's becoming more difficult to separate your personal life from your professional life these days. Stupid real name policies and pervasive connection of everything to everything else is a curse.
We need a push towards policies that make it easy for people to keep personal and work lives separate. It's common sense.
If putting her best Web foot forward" means she gets a "digital advertising" job she's got bigger problems.
I just keep my personal info completely off anything public on the internet. Tada, zero results (other than whitepages-style listings for people who aren't me). I don't have a Facebook account, my Google account has a fake name, etc. What a coincidence, I don't have problems like this.
Wouldn't it be better to teach the employers how to actaully perform an interview and be slightly professional about their hiring policies rather than playing amature hour detective on the web.
"... that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York." Her first task: get herself and her company some Slashdot hits.
So we define positive in terms of social stigma? God forbid you would be associated with having some social accumen and having a good time. Its always a negative to find out someone has ever been to a party with alcohol.
I don't see whats so negative.... some people could hold anything against you. Do you really want to work for/with such people?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I just feel bad for John Goatse.
...I find using a nickname works better.
This is arguably against Googles guidelines - and I have seen some dubious link directories that appear to be run the insiders in side universitys that try and leverage the high value and trust assigned to a .edu domain.
All the "bad" Samantha Grossmans benefit from this too. How does the digital advertising firm know they hired the sweet, innocent, non-drunkard Samantha Grossman?
Blackhat SEO is still unethical. Especially when she brags about kicking other people with the same name off the first page.
They need a service to do the following?:
1. Set your Facebook profile to private
2. Create a LinkedIn profile, and keep it moderately active
You control the content of your LinkedIn profile, and it will always be high on a search page. If your Facebook page is particularly nasty, consider cancelling it and starting fresh.
Honestly, if you are entering the full-time job market and can't figure this stuff out, you should have your Internet license revoked.
It wasn't anything too horrible, Samantha Grossman said. I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren't of me, things I wouldn't want associated with me.
So, how is this Samantha Grossman's prerogative to have exactly her pictures as the top result, instead of the other Samantha Grossmans, who now fret that there are pictures there that aren't associated with them?
I think there are more than 30 people on the internet named "Anonymous Coward"
How you fit in still matters more than what kind of work you can produce.
I party. People know I party. People have evidence that I party. YTF am I supposed to hide that? How about employers stop being prudes and hire humans. I can't stand the fact that the only way to make it through an interview these days is to lie and spout buzzwords. Why is corporate quick to hire squeaky-clean idiots over human beings that have had human experiences?
Maybe you should behave yourself in public places so you don't do stupid shit that ends up on Faceook in the first place.
Do you have different personas in real life that go to different places and dance to the music accordingly?
No? Then why should you get a free pass online to make an ass of yourself in public?
xoxo,
Mom
Guys guys! I have the best idea to fool the internet into giving her even MORE fame! Let's get on the front page of Slashdot!! So everyone googles her name!!!!! :D Those silly fools will think they're just reading the news.
Smart grads wouldn't publish that shit in the first place.
...until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
People will grow up. Society will realize that everyone does stupid shit and recognize it as part of life.
If you can't party well, how are you going to land advertising clients?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Interesting image there.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It's an advertisement for . They claim to use SEO techniques which are "white hat", but of course any SEO techniques that attempt to game google results tend to piss off Google, meaning that there's no such thing as "white hat" as far as Google is concerned.
Like most SEOs, this will get you good results for a short while until the back end comparison is made on Googles end to show graph deltas over time, and there's a huge shift in geometry on the particular search tems. At that point, the results she wanted to show up get penalized down in the returned results for searches.
I guess this might be OK, if you expect to look for a job and get one more or less immediately after you do the SEO, but less so if you end up being on the market for a while, at which point the results will be skewed *away* from those you considered desirable when you identified them to the SEO company in the first place.
This type of SEO is probably the only place SEO will work at all, but only if you are in a sellers market for your labor such that you get snapped up quickly before the bias detector figures out what you've done. Since this rarely covers the case of recent college grads with no industry experience, I'd seriously caution against using a service like this until you know what you're getting into.
I feel very fortunate for two reasons.
1. When I started using the internet in the late 80s I was paranoid enough never to use my real name.
2. My real name is shared with a well renowned uber geek programmer.
About once a year new people in my life will contact me to ask me if I am "number 2"
A couple of years ago I was a webmaster of a new political party that was being founded. I didn't fully support the party (didn't vote for it) but I personally knew some of the leaders (chairman and the person who would attract most votes) and knew that they weren't extremists or anything, so I thought "Sure, it might be interesting gig. To see how news stories influence the traffic that the site receives, etc.".
Long story short, the party did end up attracting some extremists and after a couple of months I decided "Actually, I don't want to be a part of this" and left. Even so, my name was already all over the place online (party public forums, etc.) and so... When someone googles with my name, one of the first results they get is the website of a political party widely associated with strong anti-immigration views. If they actually click on the results, they notice that my posts didn't contain anything I would now be ashamed of (mostly technical details and the couple of times I got involved with the political talk, it was mostly "Tune that down a bit, guys") and if an interviewer actually asked me, I could not only explain the case but also show a solid record of volunteering for some multiculturalism projects, etc...
However, I fear that many employers wouldn't care to research the subject enough but would rather just see "Oh, he is somehow associated with that party... what if he is a racist? Better not take the risk and rather just proceed to the next application". So, the bad judgement I did when I was 18 years old might haunt me for many, many years to come.
There are six billion people in this world.
A recruiter who Googles you expecting to find, well, you is a recruiter you don't want to work for.
A recruiter who FINDS you, specifically and undeniably you, will still find you and the things you've advertised to the world online anyway. And that's just about work-life separation.
But the person who thinks that people are Googling them and that's affecting their job prospects (without, I imagine, a shred of evidence because it's likely illegal under employment law anyway without due notice to the application and verification that it's actually them - no worse than hearsay from a stranger), and PAYS to improve the results on her name (and the other 10,000 people with that name)? I wouldn't touch her with a bargepole. What do you have to hide?
Likewise, tattoo removal is a booming business.
Seriously, fuck that guy and his hubris
So instead of complaining about not doing two things in one place (which might make it easier for someone to find both profiles swirling around, and let fbook know both your jekyll an d hyde personas), have it be that Facebook is one of your two or more social media profiles.
:>)
At my school, Facebook is what your parents are on, so your profile on Facebook is the clean parentally approvable appearance of life: what you show to your parents may not be what you show to your friends on other networks or thru txting. If you want to keep X and Y separated, just keep them separated instead of complaining that you can't have X and Y separated on the same site.
.
You might as well go to the bank and complain that you want two different bank accounts for the same profile!!!! (wait, the local credit union will let you have your personal and other accounts as subaccounts on the same account number by appending a suffix digit). You could just as well also go to another bank and open a separate account with a different tax id number just for your business!! Only that bank and the IRS have to know the linkage! (and your states Business License division, etc.)
not enough. You also must never do anything embarrassing (or which can be misconstrued as embarrassing) within eyesight of someone with a smartphone. Your web presence is not entirely up to you alone.
that's so nice their mommy and daddy's tuition money will help pay to clean up their attention whore fagot ways off google.. so very nice of these universities to vouch for these attention whore fagots and make sure they make it in life.
Is this a comment on the person who did this? Or is the "Tool" some type of Hardware and or Software?
What's so wrong with having a life before work and outside work when you are all grown up?
What's so wrong with enjoying yourself in the company of friends?
What's so wrong with having a few drinks and maybe even dancing in a silly fashion for a laugh every once in a while?
What a miserable world this is turning into.
Stick Men
Maybe you should just go by Mike...
Why don't you just go by Mike?
Fix online image fix: set facebook page to private... problem solved
Fix online image fix2: set your other accounts to private, doesn't have a private non-web crawl setting? Don't use it.
Now about counteracting reverse image searches... wear glasses & possibly a mask, have fun. Thankfully employers are as of right now too dumb to use it. Fix #1 done upon account creation would prevent your photos from being looked up as well I believe.
...without spending many hours on SEO I'm screwed.
On the other hand it makes it quite easy to hide, it's like an SEO tinfoil hat. ;-)
As if the name Grossman alone wasn't enough to land you a job in New York City.
I really don't see where is the problem. If you didn't share online info (pics, videos etc) about you but others with your name did there is esay to see for everybody that is about other person.
If you did share your pics or videos that means you are confortable with this and you assume it.
Otherwise is just a disscusion about how being an imposter is a good thing.
If you are dumb enough to post pics with you being totally drunk, naked or doing any kind of idiotic things that means you are proud enough with your achivements as to make them public.
I think that is not rocket science and you must not be an IT guru to figure out that private life is PRIVATE so keep it as it is and your proffesional life is PROFFESIONAL. After all if you like going on the beach you will not go at job wearing a swimming suit.
Beside the fact that there are peoples with different behavior sharing the same name, as I said above there is easy to be differentiated by them.
Otherwise is like walking naked on the street and being offended that people are looking at you.