Being "Googled" out of a job or Blogged out of a j

[Evil Tony]

Lately, I have written some articles that might have strong opinions on a blog of mine or articles...and wlel, my name is attached to them....and I've been reading that emploeyrs look people up and look at people this way, and to determien wether or not to hire them based one what they bring up.

What I Have written was very tame though....something about criticizing the "dating" world...and some issues I take when it comes to dating these days, and how some women like to "Expose" their cleaveage on dating sites to gain attention instead of actually finding someone.

Anyhow...it coudl be worse...but I've alway wondered if employers DID look me up...they decided not to hire me because of my criticizing people on my blog?

[Hammy]

More than likely- all of your online persona has been part of your profile for the background check since Google became what it is today.

There are case examples of people who have not been hired due to what was found on the internet.

Example:

A recent college grad (at the time it was written) received a post at Goldman Sachs, an illustrious investment firm where competition is only outpaced by compensation for those few who are appointed.

In a field of 20+ people, they hired exaclty one person for this post. The post paid more than $150k as a starting figure (in total package- meaning stock, revenue, comp plans at initial yields, etc.)

She was at the job for 9 weeks when a background investigator pulled down some photographs on her myspace page of herself smoking something from a 10 foot bong.

What made it worse was some of the articles she had written in her sophmore years that were someone anti-capitalist and decried the industry she joined as a bunch of "cash straped hogs with power".

She was terminated immediately. She later sued via wrongful discharge, and lost the case due to the fact that no one told her why she was fired, but brought to light certain qualities that could suggest her employer may have had a point when it fired her.

In the last 5 years, I have seen people miss the mark due to their questionable internet presence. Dont let it be you-= and dont believe an internet alias will protect you either.

You are what you say, even if it is on the internet, and if you are having a bad day, it's best to type up a draft and shelf it for 7 days to make sure you actually feel what you wrote. Also use a cushion reader for a filter.

Thanks for the topic Tony- its one that I actually think of often.

[Trooper110]

It is possible that employers have viewed anything that you have placed on the internet to determine whether to hire you or not. I've heard of a lot of employers visiting people's MySpace and Facebook pages in the recent past to determine desireability of a hire.

I don't know how widespread this practice is, or how far it would count against you, probably based on what job and/or company you're applying to.

You have to figure that doing searches like that required time and effort that not all agencies or agents will want to expend, so it's not something that is guaranteed to happen.

[Evil Tony]

Well, I think an alias would work, as long as no one can TRACE it to your real name, right?

In some cases, say you panic and delete all your articles from the sites you deleted your articles from....prior to THAT, someone can just copy and paste your article to some porn site with YOUR name on it as well.

Also, if someone didn't like you, they could get even by libelously posting something about you, saying its YOU making the post, when its really someone else...OR...they can just make your blog "Aware" to the public by pointing out your blog to OTHERS.

My friend is telling me I worrying too much. And what I've written wasn't so bad....as opposed to someone particpating in illegal activities and posting thier pictures on facebook exposing themselves, say flashing their tops at Mardi Gras.

Actually, it take rather little time and effort to Google a prospective applicant.

[Thrashdragon]

It depends on your field of employment and the salary range you're aiming for, but most employers, even these days, are not tech-savvy enough to think about googling someone. The ones that are that tech-savvy would be the ones most likely to not care about your net presence as long as it was clean and inoffensive. One exception I can think of is that if you have too heavy of a net presence, they might think you're going to spend more time screwing around on the internet when you should be working. Like I need to quit doing right now and get this job out the door...

AngryHamster's post was right on the money, though...when you're going after a highly competitive job with a lucrative salary, you better be squeaky clean.

But to be on the safe side, I never use my real name on the net, nor do I post anything with my current employer's name. The admins here have my real name from when I was an admin (and Cain from PayPal donations), but as for the rest of the net...I have a pretty common first and last name, so it would be difficult if not impossible to narrow it down to me, but you never know. And since I work for a small business, knowing that I am a graphic designer would make it real easy to pinpoint me if I ever mentioned the name of my company.

Like I said, though, it depends on the field. If you're doing anything technology or web-related (and the person in charge of hiring isn't some clueless HR weenie), then you'll definitely get googled.

Might be best to get your name off of anything unpleasant (and hope that it actually goes away). I have strong opinions as well, but most of them are unpalatable to the politically correct workplace.

As an aside, I googled "Thrashdragon" for the hell of it, and it's pretty funny to see what other people with that moniker do. Most of the ones on the first results page aren't me...there's a youtuber, someone else that posts some sort of republican videos, another that considers himself "an ugly dog"...

You can always be traced by IP if someone cared enough to bother. Just remember that nothing on the internet is actually anonymous.

[-IRC-MIKE]

That's why everyone should be aware of the types of communities they are in, such as Cains Lair, which requires you to register with a username/password before accessing the comments in user posts. The others that allow their content to be read publically without registration can be mostly googled very easily.

As far as the I.P. address goes, there is a lot of work involved in that type of investigation, but it can be done.

I imagine those chicks on "Girls Gone Wild" type videos will be answering a lot of questions and regretting a lot in their futures.

If you ever give your email address to a prospective employer, they can track down some info that way too. My ISP allows me to have 10 different email addresses, with 10 different ailiases. If I gave them a different email address or ailias it would still reflect my I.P. address. You can gain a surprising amount of info on someone via their I.P. address and given a username or email address. I have had to do some criminal background checking on a few people, and I was actually surprised at what I found for FREE, much less paying one of those sites that let you dig up more protected information... social security numbers..etc.

[Hammy]

Yes- and to add to what I was alluding to- consider this.

You have an IP address that also has a regional designate.
Country
State
Region
Neighborhood.

All of that is in your IP- either on file at the provider or directly in the assignment number.

Say your name is AngryHamster.
You google it. You see some really ugly things, you almost go blind (okay I'll stop fooling around), and you see that there are 27 probable hits.

It takes just a few moments to figure out where the AngryHamster is in terms of Country. Hmm- my AngryHamster lives in the US.

Okay dumb it down to just a few pages now- only 50% are US based.

Now- my Angry Hamster is on the left-coast (California), okay 4 pages.
Now mine seems to be in Region 12 of California.
1 page.
I now have my target and I have material content that is referencable with an accuracy of 80% or better.

That last part is what is important and why I say PROTECT your presence.
It only take 60% to create doubt, and it only takes 80% for people to forego the risk in most cases.

One of the things you need to consider as well, is the human factor. The reason we live in such a glorius society of gadgetry is that we are innately LAZY. Cars, computers, etc. they all existed first to provide a means to efficiency.

If you see a ton of porn posts by AngryHamster- you may not even go so far as to investigate. Why should you when you likely have a good pool of candidates? It's far easier to not go down that road, besides, you may not want to see what is down that road!

I'm not going to give the details, for the same reasons I am speaking of here, but one of the things I do know is investigation and law enforcement- fedral, state, and local government as well as private contracting.

You can be profiled in a just a week with very little information- that is a bonifide fact.

second, someone mentions the job value, criteria, context, and priviledges. Smaller businesses spend more money on background checks in the US than any other businesses combinded. Do you know why?

Because their risk tolerance is less than JP Morgan, IBM, and HP. Thye dont have the resources to say "oops- it didnt work out" 4 or 5 times. The cost of hiring a professional is roughly 25% or more than your cactual base salary. Someone hired at 45k a year costs 75k in total with benefits, insurance, processing, and operational costs.

Third, do you think getting canned or not getting the job at the smaller company is less important? Try again! its worse- because if the little shop wont hire you, then why the hell would you be a great candidate for us? Not getting hired by the B or C team is much worse than getting fired from the A team.

Point here is this- your internet persona IS your life. The genuine fact is that Web 2.0 is about content and context, and you will become married to your internet personal value.

Dont fall into the "I told you so" category. Just be a good person, dont get the golden ass-hat over a flame job you did to some schmuck who probably deserved it just because you think you are anonymous.

In my opinion, and based on how I've seen it done, you can be found no matter what you think your level of security protection is.

[-IRC-MIKE]

Read it or not, but anyway something I'd like to share as a personal experience with one of my websites I used to host privately. Yes, someone attempted to sue me over something that was on one of my forums on a server that I owned.. which they failed miserably... but while I was finding out some information to prepare myself for the suit I ran across this page and thought you might like to read it since it has a little to do with this topic ...here it is:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/johndoe/

I strongly urge ANYONE who has a website of any kind to properly arm themselves with a working knowledge of and implement a disclaimer page on their site, no matter what the content.

Also see the other links on the left for some other interesting reads.