I’m job-hunting, and being the skeptic that I am, I google in-depth the people I have an interview with as well as the company in question. I’ve got a potential coming up, I’ve spent the last two weeks completing psychometric testing, analytical skills testing and a myriad of other skills assessments before I was duly “qualified” to be interviewed. I’ve now received confirmation that my background and skills (and personality and analytical abilities and, and, and) are acceptable and was given the chap’s name who I’ll be meeting.
I duly type his name into Google, and I find only one local listing for the man, he’s into playing Fantasy league football… his wife however… well, I’ve got so much info on her I could blackmail her. Its quite scary really how much info people give away on the internet with no thought of who can access it. Which brings me to wondering what type of man my potential new boss might be… he’s bloody thorough in researching his potential employees and I suspect my name was googled as well (aside from a few professors that happen to share my name, he’ll find very little). I’m curious…
Hmmm…I’ve just googled myself for the first time. I can’t find anything embarrasing, but I don’t make a secret of my scepticism & atheism which could have an adverse effect when job-seeking.
The social networks and internet forums have effectively replaced the old fashioned, lockable diary that was discretely stashed behind a loose floorboard in an ever-so-Victorian manner. And in a much more public way. I’ve made a long overdue break with my former social network account some months ago. Not because of paranoia (in fact, I am an ostensible waste of commercial cyberspace, if the insulting dearth of spam in my inbox after joining up is any measure), but because the novelty of reading pages and pages of status updates and replying in an equally trivial manner finally wore off.
I’ve read somewhere - might have been Huisgenoot - that employers sometimes also scope out their current and candidate employees using these social utilities. As you rightly say, it is not entirely impossible that your own profile has been piecemealed from the web as well! To that end, it may be worthwile to keep all information that you divulge to the internet resonating with whatever is on your CV.
All the best with the interview. And wear something that you now know he’d like. >:D
Gods, the man made it very clear what he wants, someone from corporate with a fine sense of ethics (thats me!! ;D) and judging from all those bloody assessments, he’s certainly looking for someone with a bit of brains, although the odds are that, should he appoint me, he’ll get a lot of bullsh*t instead. But never mind that, I can do the proposed job.
As for social networking, I’ve never bothered, I’m member of a couple forums such as this one and that is about the extent the Faerie flouts her personal life (although I’m quite open about my life on here… hmmmm…) Anyway, aside from my email addy, they’ll probably not pick up Faerie’s tales from my RL name.
Privacy is a modern myth. When people lived/live in small enough community’s everybody knows every body’s business.
It was only in city living that we gained some level of anonymity. Now that we have the “global village” we’re back where
we started from. It’s not a bad thing if you ask me, study’s have shown people are better behaved when they lack anonymity or when
they know somebody is watching.
Seems like Google doesn’t know any embarrassing secrets about me yet. One of the advantages of being a boring guy. I wonder if my boss tried to Google me before appointing me. If so, she would have found little more than my mostly innocuous Facebook page. I guess it helps that on the numerous message boards where I hang out, I don’t use my full name, and indeed I use an alias on some of them.
Hmm, I notice now that when I type my message board name into Google I do indeed get gazillions of hits (I really waste way too much time on the web), but a lot of those are definitely not me. It is thus easier to disavow anything embarrassing I may have done online.
This is why I intentionally don’t mention my name and use different aliases all over the internet. This is the only forum I use the alias “BoogieMonster” for, an off-the-cuff choice that seems to have stuck. 8)
This is one of the reasons I decided not to be on Twitter anymore. It was fun to start but then my whole family realized what my account name was. Eventually I just did not like people knowing so much about me.
The company I work for has linked to most of the above.
I am always worried that what I post may offend someone higher up. At the same time, I refuse not to be myself and to remain quite when I see the stupid.
So now, whenever I post, I alway think first, what is the best way to say what I want, in such a way that there is no doubt about my option and feelings on the subject, and yet won’t get me fired or damage any future prospects I may have.
I post just a little less than I used to and each post takes a little longer before I hit the send button, but is that really not a good thing, should I not have been doing that all along?
I recently “unsubscribed” from Facebook. You can deactivate your account, but you cannot clear it. It is like the Hotel California where “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Nothing on me when I use just my name but if I type my actual name and atheist in google then is comes up with anything I’ve commented on on Facebook but also every picture I’ve uploaded to my blog and I don’t use my name on it at all - so it must trace it to my email address??
>:D
