I read an article on Slashdot today which led me to two other articles. The articles were all about how employers are now starting to use the web and social networking sites like Facebook & Twitter to learn more about their employees and more specifically, people they are looking at hiring. There’s an opinion piece about how employers should mind their own business and then a bit more on how one firm has specifically said they won’t go anywhere near the web to look up info about new hires as it should be labelled off limits.
The big deal is that employers are now able to use some of your personal info found on the web to make decisions about you before they even get to know you. Job counsellors are saying that you should keep anything that could make you look bad off the web “in case” a possible employer sees it and makes a decision based on it.
Personally, I can understand both sides of the coin. But the fact of the matter is, even though I put personal information in a public forum, I don’t think it has any place in the recruitment process. Why should it matter what I have on my FB page or blog? In fact, for myself, I embrace the idea that someone can look me up online. This website is a testament of that. Pretty much everything you want to know about me is right here. What I want to keep to myself, I don’t post on the internet.
I have actually had two experiences related to this. I actually got a call from McKenzie (I think that was it) once where the campus manager wanted to meet me. She didn’t have any open positions, but she saw Bobsroom.Com through someone or something, and just wanted to meet me because she thought I would be an interesting person, and that if an opportunity came up she’d be one step ahead in recruitment. It never went anywhere but it was interesting to see.
The other time was directly related to my stint at Compucollege. During my job interview, I noticed on my soon-to-be bosses desk there were printouts from this site. He had printed my “vitals” page which had my history and such. He obviously had looked me up online and did some reading. At first, I was a little concerned thinking he would have gone through all that stuff, but then I thought about it and realized that I put myself out here as I really am. Like it or not, here I am.
I’ve learned over the course of time through my own trials and tribulations the sort of things that belong online and the things that should stay offline so I take steps to insure that. But when I read articles like these, it makes me wonder that if I am the perfect candidate to work in Company X, could I get rejected because I posted a few videos on Facebook that were a little racy? If it really came down to that, I don’t think it would be the type of company I would want to work for anyway.
The one other thing I would like to point out is that your personal life is your personal life and your professional life is your professional life. Why should your activities in your personal life be used to judge how you would be on a professional level?
Your thoughts?
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