collegejournal.com — According to a 2005 survey of 102 executive recruiters, an executive job-search and networking organization, 75% of recruiters use search engines to uncover information about candidates, and 26% of recruiters have eliminated candidates because of information found on-line. Search engines aren't going away, so here are some tips to help you.
Jul 11, 2006 View in Crawl 4
profjohnJul 12, 2006
It's a great topic, but not a particularly good article on it. Sorry, not digg-worthy in my book.
obkenobiJul 12, 2006
One thing I agree about, recruiters are often not exactly the most wholesome of people. I suggest you avoid them if at all possible, unless you're sure about their reputation.
vetipcJul 12, 2006
Yeah, definitely change your name. I am thinking about Ford Prefect, does it sound good?
leadhyenaJul 12, 2006
This is a non-issue. The lack of verifiability is the hangup. Can you _prove_ that someone's handle is actually connected to a real person without checking ISP logs? Come on. Anyone who uses their real name on Myspace et. al. is too stupid to hold a position at your company anyway. Furthermore, what's the legality of this? Eventually this will be tested in court, and it shouldn't come to anyone's surprise when they demand that internet activities should not be a factor in any hiring decision.
interiotJul 12, 2006
Since companies apparently believe any random information they find online, just photoshop yourself having dinner with some dignitaries, or talk about how happy you are that your business project just got $500 million in financing.There's a reason it seems unprofessional for companies to use google search results in the interview process. That's because it is.
giraldusJul 12, 2006
You are making the assumption that the person who does the search is as sophisticated a search engine user as you are... we are talking about corporate recruiters here, and not even the most senior ones among them, since we are probably talking about initial filtering here, keep that in mind and start worrying: your very common name might actually create odd associations on the web, folks with whom might not necessarily want to be confused. Oh and the fact that someone lives in a different country doesn't mean much: I have lived in -- i.e., not just visited -- half a dozen different countries, and my name can be found associated with as many exotic different addresses...
giraldusJul 12, 2006
I do worry a little bit about this trend though: the earliest post of mine on usenet was sometimes in 1987 -- just checked with google -- have had the same 'official' email address since about the same time and I had my first web page in 1993.... at a time when Internet was a bit different from what it is today, a different crowd, spam in its infancy, and I was a wee bit younger and idealistic, and thought it was unethical to hide one's identity online (yeah, I know, one does dumb things in his youth); another thing which I find annoying is that a few mailing lists, initially advertised as 'members only', are now archived/searchable on the web -- nothing compromising, technical stuff, but annoying nonetheless (if only because it discloses one's email address to the whole world, spammers included)