Googling your name is always something fun to do, but have you ever really thought about how you appear to other people? I just googled my name and found a Xanga site that I completely forgot about, and not to mention had a link to a webshots pages I had also forgotten I had ever created, a volleyball player at Catholic University named Katie Acuff, a web site that I had created for a class when I was in 6th grade, and some other random irrelevant links.
The site that I had made when I was in 6th grade is called "The Mystery of History" and is an unfinished. I highly doubt that this page would ever be usable information for potential employers. However, the Xanga site is a little bit more incriminating. After reading through some of the posts, I realized that I had written this when I was a sophomore in high school. It's very embarrassing to read some of the things I posted. There was one entry where I talked about how I was always getting grounded, how my mom thought that I was a pathological liar, I used to sneak out of the house and more...not something that I want my potential employees to think. I don't know how seriously companies would take a Xanga site from sophomore in high school but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them turning it against me. If companies will use a Facebook picture from 10 years ago against a potential employee, why not use my Xanga site? Although I have not touched my Xanga site in years, it still comes up on Google before my IT blog, which I have been updating at least once a week.
It seems to have become a necessity for presidential candidates to make a list of everything that they have ever done and admit to them before incriminating evidence is found and brought up in a press conference. Any information that can be found will be used against them if possible. If Barack Obama can be a potential president of the United States after admitting to the use of cocaine, businesses should be able to look past a ten year old scandalous picture from Facebook.
However, we cannot assume that information published online will not be used against us even if it is old. It is clearly happening either way. Hiring someone to review everything online that can be accessed by the public is definitely not a bad way to go. Reputation Defender seems like a good choice for anyone interviewing for a job. It is not a bad idea for anyone in any organization to make sure that everything published on the internet about themselves is something that they don't mind being seen by their mothers and grandmothers, usually a good rule of thumb.
3 comments:
Katie, you are right, we might have fun searching for our names, but what if people we dont know do it, employeer and such. Its hard to believe that something as fun as looking and your friends pictures or sharing information with them can become so damaging for your professional career.
I am totally against companies using the internet as deciding factors for job hire. Honestly, I feel that those that hire can't say anything to any potential hires. What would happen if those people didn't hire you, and then you Googled the people you interviewed? What would you find? I feel that there would be some incriminating evidence there as well. It's a double-edged sword. Because of this reason, it shouldn't be used as a deciding factor for hiring people.
i guess your reputation online matters more than your "real world" reputation (sigh)
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