Colleges Help Students Fix Their Online Indiscretions

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Colleges Help Students Fix Their Online Indiscretions

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 2, 2013 @04:18AM from the who's-going-to-see-this dept.

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."

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Facebook has crappy policies by ZorinLynx · 2013-01-02 04:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
1. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by hawguy · 2013-01-02 04:36 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  Maybe Facebook could let you organize your social media contacts into different "circles" and let you share content based on which "circle" a person in. They could keep the membership of those "circles" private so no one knows which circle they are in or who else in in that circle.
  Someone should start a social media site like that! It's sure to be a Facebook killer.
2. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by Penguinisto · 2013-01-02 05:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There is a cure for that...
  Use Facebook for all your personal crap, and LinkedIn for all your professional crap.
  Or, just tell Facebook to go /sbin/fsck themselves and create two accounts anyway (one is accessed via Chrome, the other via Firefox, or whatever).
  
  --
  Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
3. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by DavidD_CA · 2013-01-02 05:09 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Maybe Facebook could let you organize your social media contacts into different "lists" and let you share content based on which "list" a person in. They could keep the membership of those "lists" private so no one knows which circle they are in or who else in in that circle.
  Oh wait. It does.
  
  --
  -David
4. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by thetoadwarrior · 2013-01-02 05:18 · Score: 2
  
  That doesn't help with publically accessible material that gets indexed by Google. Secondly, Facebook does have that sort of functionality and it had it before Google. The only thing google did was simplify things to give potential users the impression they care about your privacy, which, imo, is a bit of a joke.
5. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by Bengie · 2013-01-02 05:42 · Score: 2
  
  G+ lets me choose who gets to see what. Kind of nice. I can even preview as if I am another person to see what all they get to see.
6. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by xelah · 2013-01-02 06:24 · Score: 2
  
  There should, of course, be nine circles. One for your sex life, one about money, one where you put all your rants, one for all things heretical, etc. Hmm, which one is it where everyone has to be doused in faeces? Oh, and of course Mark Zuckerberg himself will be in the centre of the ninth.
My method works better by slashmydots · 2013-01-02 04:25 · Score: 2

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.
1. Re:My method works better by Psyborgue · 2013-01-02 04:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  That wouldn't solve her problem, which is that somebody with her exact name had been a very bad girl online. In that case, it makes sense to create a "clean" persona and attempt to push that to the top.
2. Re:My method works better by kannibal_klown · 2013-01-02 04:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Though some tech jobs might look down at not having a web presence. Perhaps you're out of touch with the electronic world? Perhaps you don't know about social apps, communities, web 2.0, whatever "buzz words" HR might look for.
  I'm not saying it's true, just that it could be perceived as true by the HR guys that filter the resumes before they get sent to the department. While other people might look favorably on that for a candidate: security conscious and what-not.
  It reminds of a job I applied for, I knew the person hiring (not an underling, the flippin' manager). He said for legal reasons I had to submit my resume through their official channels but once it got to his department he'd help me out. A few weeks go by and he asks why I didn't follow up with the job, I told him I did. He was puzzled, and came back to me later -- the HR department weeded mine out because I "only" had X years experience with .Net. They were weeding out people who didn't have Y+ years experience with .Net... which was "awesome" because they wanted 10+ years with .Net and it had only officially been out for a couple.
  He was not happy (nor was I).
3. Re:My method works better by Psyborgue · 2013-01-02 04:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is exactly what people like her fear. I'm not saying it's a realistic fear, but it's a common one.
4. Re:My method works better by UnanimousCoward · 2013-01-02 06:42 · Score: 2
  
  Well, it's about cost-benefit analysis, isn't it? For you, the liabilities of exposing yourself on the Web outweigh the benefits. Not true for others. Then, there's the group that doesn't understand either, but that's their problem...
  
  --
  Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
... and now spamming Slashdot by 1u3hr · 2013-01-02 04:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

"... 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.
1. Re:... and now spamming Slashdot by codegen · 2013-01-02 05:00 · Score: 2
  
  I know this is slashdot, and people don't want to read the article, the company that she got a job with is not mentioned in the article. She is just profiled as one of the students using the reputation cleanup service provided by the University. This is in fact a University pushed story since it is college application time, to advertise one of the fringe benefits of the University. The company mentioned was actually created by three of the University Alumni.
  
  --
  Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Positive? by TheCarp · 2013-01-02 04:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

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"
1. Re:Positive? by SuricouRaven · 2013-01-02 05:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You are confusing your utopian vision with the real world. How people should judge others is unimportant. How they *do* judge others is. So long as potential employers are judging you, you would do well to play the game and act like the most professional and dull person in the world. Unless you enjoy going back to your parents and begging to be allowed to live in the basement again.
2. Re:Positive? by jonadab · 2013-01-02 09:13 · Score: 2
  
  > Its always a negative to find out someone
  > has ever been to a party with alcohol.
  
  In the Midwest, it is. Respectable people can't be publicly seen having anything to do with alcohol (as a beverage; using denatured alcohol as paint thinner or whatever is fine). It's unprofessional, like having a visible tattoo or refusing to ever bathe. You will NOT get hired for any job that requires a college degree (or many that don't), and people will not take you seriously in other contexts as well. Anyone with any amount of social acumen, as you put it, would not need to be told this. You're supposed to know this stuff, based on the fact that you live in society and pay SOME attention to how it works. (That's assuming you live here, in the Midwest. More on that point in a moment.)
  
  Realistically, if you want people in society -- including prospective employers -- to respect you, then you have to have some measure of respect for the cultural requirements of the society you live in. The details do vary from culture to culture. In Japan, for example, there is no significant negative social stigma associated with alcohol, but heaven forfend you should ever tell your boss what you actually think about anything at all (UNLESS you are stoned out of your mind, in which case then it's fine). So maybe where you live it's different. I don't know, because I don't know where you live.
  
  But yes, in some parts of the world being associated with drunken revelry is viewed as highly unprofessional and will definitely put a serious damper on your career plans, among other things.
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Could be worse. by Richy_T · 2013-01-02 04:30 · Score: 5, Funny

I just feel bad for John Goatse.
1. Re:Could be worse. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-02 04:38 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  And the HR department.
Re:confused by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-02 04:33 · Score: 5, Funny

I don't see Steve Jobs anywhere on that page. Oh, did you mean Newtown?
More Black Hat SEO from Uni's by mjwalshe · 2013-01-02 04:33 · Score: 2

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.
No matter how you twist it by Hentes · 2013-01-02 04:34 · Score: 2

Blackhat SEO is still unethical. Especially when she brags about kicking other people with the same name off the first page.
1. Re:No matter how you twist it by bananaquackmoo · 2013-01-02 05:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Believe it or not this doesn't appear to be blackhat. It is SEO though, you're right about that.
2. Re:No matter how you twist it by Kergan · 2013-01-02 06:42 · Score: 2
  
  It's hardly difficult to do, you know... and whoever you kicked off of the front page can readily jump back onto it if he or she desires. Methinks it's fair play. If anything, Google should be the target of your disapproval, for clustering results more than they should be, or showing potentially embarrassing results to computers that google full names all day long. (In fact, I'm actually surprised that no US citizen has tried to sue Google over it yet.)
  At any rate, the trick is to simply create a couple of profiles using your real name on high ranking sites: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stack Overflow, github, Timblr, a WordPress blog, whatever else you fancy. Basically, any high ranking site that will host a space for you, with your full name into the page title, the url, or (better) both.
  From there, link these pages together here and there ("About myself"), populate each one with minute amounts of content, and you're very much done. These pages will then quickly hike to Google's front page whenever people search for your full name. No tricks needed other than merely being there.
  The only real issue in the longer term, imho, is photo/video tagging done by friends (yours or another's) who maintain far too public a presence. I haven't used FB for years, but I don't recollect there was much you could do about those back when I did. And for better or worse, the monkeys who work in HR are far more competent at find embarrassing photos when they scratch the surface, than they are at shortlisting people for interviews.
Of all Samanthas by jones_supa · 2013-01-02 04:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

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?
1. Re:Of all Samanthas by Stormwatch · 2013-01-02 05:12 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Indeed, what about the party-going Samantha Grossman who WANTED such photographs to be found when you googled her name? What an insensitive clod!
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
2. Re:Of all Samanthas by travdaddy · 2013-01-02 05:22 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Indeed, what about the party-going Samantha Grossman who WANTED such photographs to be found when you googled her name? What an insensitive clod!
  
  Now she'll never get her sugar daddy!
  
  --
  Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Michael Bolton. There was nothing wrong with it... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-02 05:15 · Score: 4, Funny

...until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
"...her best Web foot..." by John+Hasler · 2013-01-02 05:17 · Score: 2

Interesting image there.

--
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Advertisement for BrandYourself by tlambert · 2013-01-02 05:19 · Score: 2

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.
Re:Cum Laude Degree? by Minwee · 2013-01-02 05:22 · Score: 4, Funny

Why publishers/ad agencies often take English grads from oxbridge = we have an Oxford Alumni on our team (digital marketing for a FTSE100 company) - Bridget Jones worked in publishing and the diary has jokes about "wittgenstein"
But are any of them capable of forming a complete sentence?
Re:Wouldn't it be better... by mjwalshe · 2013-01-02 09:06 · Score: 2

Another plus for the NHS or the German system - the whole point of insurance is its a pooled risk picking the pool is having your cake and eating it.