Seems to me another problem is that there are probably more duplicate names than unique ones in this country (or world, really, if we are on the internet). Google my (fairly uncommon) name and the first stuff you get is about someone else.
I did have a student go to an admissions interview for Princeton and have the guy mention that he (the kid) was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt in his Facebook profile pic. The student didn’t get the impression that the interviewer really cared, but it gave him a bad moment.
Actually, for the past 5 years it’s provided me with a very lucrative job.
This is sort of my field of expertise. For the past 5 years or so I’ve been a management consultant / strategy expert specializing in computer forensics, data security, electronic discovery and other related services.
The short answer is that companies are handling these issues in different ways. But people have and do get fired for data they download or keep on their computers or send by email.
Is your company actively searching for images of you playing Beruit on the roof of your fraternity house with an underage prosititude? Probably not. Should you keeps those photo’s publically available on your Facebook or MySpace account? No. Should you use your work laptop for downloading extreme porn? Absolutely NOT!
Many large companys, in fact, have their own Facebook networks. Half my Facebook friends are people from my last job. Some who I report to and many who report to me. So while there is no official policy and the environment was very fraternity-like, you still have to be selective about who sees what photos and what you post online:
-Nothing naked
-Nothing sexual
-Nothing disparaging about the company
-No sloppy drunk pictures
-Nothing that would offend a coworker
and so on.
In other words, nothing that you wouldn’t want the entire world to see anyway.
Most companies are still trying to figure out how to handle Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other networking sites not controlled by the company that may contain information from employees.
I wouldn’t be all paranoid about it. Just exercise some common sense.
There have been several stories about teachers fired for some sort of explicite pictures online. So yeah I know it can happen. Like pediscribe I don’t associate my real name with any of my online communities. No Facebook, MySpace or anything like that. I do agree with the hope that as some of these actions become more previlant with a younger generation that perhaps they’ll cease to be a big deal. Flashing your boobs at Mardi Gras? Eh…not really that big a deal in my opinion. Hopefully we’ll become a bit more European in our views of casual nudity in time.
I’ve seen MySpace quotes that torpedoed someone’s chances of employment with my agency. A little background. My place of employment is dedicated to my state’s history, culture, etc. An applicant who was from outside the state applied for a position, and, for some strange reason, he listed his MySpace profile. We checked it out and he made several bad comments about our state. Immediately he was no longer considered for the job.
I suppose this isn’t quite the same because he did list his MySpace profile on his resume. It’s not normally something we check. However there are places of employment who look at this stuff.
My concern is what happens when not having MySpace/FaceBook/Whatever the “Hot” social networking site is pages costs people potential jobs, since the employer goes “Well, I’ve got no idea what this person (the Facebook-less applicant) is like, but but Bubbly McSocial-Butterfly here has a page showing her with ponies and kittens and helping handicapped orphans. Thats the sort of person we want working here!”
Depending on who’s hiring, it might get you a job.
Seriously, I think to some extent it depends on the position the company is hiring for. A receptionist or secretary whose references are all glowing and clearly has the required experience? I couldn’t care less if she has naughty or drunken pictures online. They don’t necessarily have anything to do with her ability to do her job. If I hired her and she wasn’t performing, for that reason or any other, I’d let her go.
It is ubiquitous, but theres a generational shift happening with Facebook. A lot of older people I know still aren’t wired into social networking like Facebook. They don’t see the culture of pictures on there. Many of these people are the higher ups in employment. I think in 20 years time people will start to care less about photos on the internet as many people will have some skeletons in their closet posted on the internet somewhere.
I don’t know. As someone who’s been responsible for hiring people, I’ve often been desperate for information. A resume and interview can only tell so much, and deciding between several apparently equal candidates is a problem I still haven’t solved. It is *very * hard trying to come up with some objective, useful criteria. This is why you check your resume for typos and shine your shoes; as stupid as it sounds, it can be the determining factor whether you get a job or not. I’m guessing that public pictures of you acting like an idiot will carry at least as much weight.
I think this problem will still be with us when, instead of me, my grandchildren are weighing equally qualified candidates. Only the technology will have changed.
I suspect you are right, over time people will learn to weight twenty year old photos from high school and college differently than current pictures - will realize that even the most devout Mormon has taken one of those eyes half shut look like I’m drunk off my ass photots.
However, two things come to mind - I think current photos where you are ‘behaving badly’ are always going to get weighted against people who don’t have those photos up. Most managers who have managed for any amount of time have had to put up with employees who call in hungover - or show up hungover. Or bring their dating drama into the office. If only I had a simple way to tell if the person I was interviewing was at all likely to bring those behaviors into the office…
The second thought is that it really doesn’t matter what it might be in the future, right now if you are graduating from college the labor market is TOUGH. And right now if I need to decide between thirty good resumes and I can just throw out ten of them based on something as simple as their My Space page - that leaves me twenty good candidates.
In the late 90s if you had a few computer skills, could form complete sentences and bathed more often than once a week, you could get a job. In 2002, you needed more skills AND more polish for that same job. Now is not the job market to test how much you can get away with on your Facebook page.
Your concern is unfounded. That’s not how it works.
What generally happens with most technology is that you put yourself at a disadvantage by not using it. It’s like if you didn’t use email or a telephone. You are making it that much more difficult for potential employers to find you. There are a lot of networking groups on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. It won’t cost you a job not to use them, but you are not using potential resources that may give an edge to candidates who are using them.
“You will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who have raped children, molested kids, forwarded nude photo’s of his underage girlfriend to all her friends and family, things like that.”
Given he didn’t rape or molest anyone, but why do people always think their crime isn’t as bad as everyone elses?
My only problem with the sentence is that every time you add some dickhead who sends naked pictures of his girlfriend, a drunk frat guy who went streaking or any other relatively mundane and harmless crime, it defeats the purpose of having a sex offender registry which is to protect the public from dangerous criminals.
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