EMPLOYEES: BEWARE OF THE GOOGLING GUMSHOE

JOB HUNTING? BEWARE: POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS DO GOOGLE YOU & THAT’S NOT ALL

There will always be two sides to every story. There will always be the squeaky clean (or pretend-a squeak) & there will always be the rebel co-ed or co-worker. The Squeaky clean or those who want to appear to future , current or potential employers, squeaky clean are falling in the line of 100’s of people who are cleaning up their act, or cleaning up their MySpace of FaceBook act.  I recently posted a story about how the IRS will use any crook and nook to find delinquent taxpayers-guess where they are looking? You got it, social networking pages. A few months back I posted a story based on a conversation I had with one of the local police officers I work with in my law practice.

My favorite police officer informed me people using FaceBook & MySpace are really making the law enforcement officers jobs easy. The hours & days & countless resources they formerly used to locate suspects and to learn more about people suspected of criminal activity has been made so easy; all they need now is a laptop and www.facebook.com. As my Friend put it; “Criminals are stupid and the ones advertising their whereabouts and activities on FaceBook are no exception.”

Now it appears you have someone else checking out your profile, party pics and message wall, and it ain’t cuz they want to be your friend. Employers who are in the hiring process readily admit checking out the social web sites of their potential candidates.  What does this mean to you, if anything? Are you among the 75% of job seekers who are cleaning up your act- that is cleaning up your MySpace page? Are you hurrying to remove those late night party pix, photos of you and your guy mugging; photos of you and your girlfriends showing your ass-literally ~ at you best pals bachelorette party? What about the all nighters, photos of your buds and you doing jello shots in the Quarter of the Big Easy?

Or are you among the other 25% who say “To hell with them!” As one polled employee stated “I’m not removing anything from my page. Why should I? Why should I pretend to be one person for eight hours a day and another for the rest of my hours?” Well, the operative word from that person, is EMPLOYEE, as in, already employed, not currently seeking employment in this topsy turvy economy.

I can see both sides? Can’t you? I mean, why should we have to remove all of our cherished and fun memories from Our Personal Page? One easy example: Once you put it out there, it is for the world to see. You lose any and all reasonable expectation of privacy.

BUT… Do you really want to work for a company that invades your personal space, your MySpace? Of course the flip side to that argument is that when you enter the grown up world and you are asking a reputable company to hire you; your reputation is a part of you.

I don’t think I need to state the obvious here, but I will. If by chance your personal page shows photos of you doing something illegal, “Pass the bong man.” Then for God’s sake have enough sense and self worth to get rid of it. Likewise, if you have provocative or nude photos or heaven forbid sexually explicit photos; GET THEM OFF THE WEB. If not for the chance of scoring a lucrative career; do it for your own self respect. Think about the college co-eds who pose nude for playboy. It might be fun at the time when you are say 18 or 19, but jump ahead ten years. Do you really want the man you marry to see your T&A all over a porn mag? What about your future children? In-laws? Probably not. Well the same goes for what you post on MySpace & Facebook etal:

The question then becomes: Where do we draw the line? When do fun party pix cross the line into just damn raunchy photos?

Check out this recent article posted by Allan Hoffman, Monster Tech Jobs Expert & While you are at it read some more helpful info on “Keeping Your E-Image Clean” by other top writers like Michael Fertick, CEO of Reputation Defender, Michael Kelemen {who has a different opinion}, he does not waste time googling or stalking you on MySpace, he goes the traditional route and checks your references. Kelemen is a recruiter who runs the ‘Animal Recruiter Blog’. And be sure to check out; yourHRguy, any anonymous Blogger.

Job Applicant, Beware: You’re Being Googled

by Allan Hoffman
Monster Tech Jobs Expert

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• Your Online Image
• Keep Your E-Image Clean

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It’s not just what you say that can be held against you when you’re looking for a job. It’s also what you post on MySpace, write in your blog and broadcast on YouTube.

That’s because if a potential employer uncovers salacious or otherwise unflattering material about you online, that job offer you were expecting could vaporize. With 77 percent of employers Googling and otherwise researching applicants, you never know what your future bosses may think about those times you ranted about your coworkers or got sloshed at a party. They may simply decide to avoid your questionable past and move on to the next candidate.

“Who wants to be the person in HR who brings in the kid who has bong hits all over his page?” says Michael Fertik, the CEO of ReputationDefender, a services company that helps job seekers clean up their online reputations.

A 2006 survey of 100 executive recruiters by job search and recruiting network ExecuNet found that 77 percent use search engines to learn about candidates. Of those researching candidates online, 35 percent eliminated a candidate from consideration based on information they uncovered online -- up from 26 percent in 2005. ExecuNet predicts that the number of job seekers prejudged or eliminated due to this “digital dirt” will climb.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

Others say the trend may not be as widespread or as likely to accelerate. “I never run them through Google,” says recruiter Michael Kelemen of his candidates. “I call their references for background.”

“I think a lot of the stuff we read about recruiters doing background checks on their candidates online is more rumor than anything else,” adds Kelemen, who runs the Recruiting Animal blog.

Recruiters use Internet searches “to avoid major red flags, but it is just another assessment of a person,” says the anonymous blogger known as Your HR Guy. He adds, “My general view on Internet searches is that, for most positions, ignorance is bliss. Most of what is online for a majority of workers is personal, and most workers’ personal stuff [doesn’t play a role at work].”

But If Everyone Has an Online Past...

Others say the pervasiveness of social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, and the way young people virtually live online mean employers won’t be able to judge candidates based on their digital dirt. If they do, the thinking goes, they will miss out on top-notch employees, given that just about everyone will have some incriminating information online.

In a posting at the Brazen Careerist Web site, Jason Warner, Google’s head of staffing for online sales and operations, contends that this trend “will become a non-issue as this phase of the Internet Age plays itself out.” He suggests five reasons employers won’t spend time worrying about “unfortunate online photos” and “other embarrassing antics”:

• College students have always behaved in this manner.
• More details about everyone will be online.
• Searching for photos won’t be worth recruiters’ time.
• The information is irrelevant.
• It’s a slippery slope, especially if employers start to research existing employees’ outside behaviors.

Warner acknowledged the risks of having “those photos” online, and in a subsequent online discussion about his views at Brazen Careerist, others noted how interviewers and hiring managers may find it impossible to disregard what they learn online about candidates, even if the material falls into the category of forgivable indiscretions.

Clean Up Your Act or Stay True?

Certainly the possibility that a prospective employer can uncover things about your past can create anxiety about whether you should clean up your online image by revising Facebook pages, requesting that videos and blog posts about you be removed, or by hiring ReputationDefender or a similar service.

In a Brazen Careerist article titled “Twentysomething: Raunchy Old Photos Will Be Part of the Revolution,” Ryan Healy, cofounder of Employee Evolution, a Web site for Millennials entering the workforce, said he knows people who have removed materials “to save some face in the real world,” but has never considered doing so himself. “Why should I pretend to be one person for eight hours a day and someone else entirely the rest?” he writes.

And consider this: The generation moving into the workforce may not want to work for an employer that wouldn’t hire a talented 20-something for having a drunken photo on Facebook, suggests Scott Allen, coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online. “The standards are going to radically change,” he says.

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http://www.reputationdefender.com/

http://www.recruitinganimal.com./

http://www.yourhrguy.com/

http://www.employeeevolution.com/

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