Should Job Seekers Tell Employers To Quit Snooping? 681
onehitwonder writes in with a CIO opinion piece arguing that potential employees need to stand up to employers who snoop the Web for insights into their after-work activities, often disqualifying them as a result. "Employers are increasingly trolling the web for information about prospective employees that they can use in their hiring decisions. Consequently, career experts advise job seekers to not post any photos, opinions or information on blogs and social networking websites (like Slashdot) that a potential employer might find remotely off-putting. Instead of cautioning job seekers to censor their activity online, we job seekers and defenders of our civil liberties should tell employers to stop snooping and to stop judging our behavior outside of work, writes CIO.com Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson. By basing professional hiring decisions on candidates' personal lives and beliefs, employers are effectively legislating people's behavior, and they're creating an online environment where people can't express their true beliefs, state their unvarnished opinions, be themselves, and that runs contrary to the free, communal ethos of the Web. Employers that exploit the Web to snoop into and judge people's personal lives infringe on everyone's privacy, and their actions verge on discrimination."
Actually this can be very informative (Score:5, Funny)
... in the hiring decisions. It's a good thing I checked on Slashdot before we ended up hiring Anonymous Coward.
Use it to your advantage. (Score:5, Funny)
1. Set your facebook/irc/whatever status to reflect your positive attitude towards your corporate masters.
2. Blog and upload photos on your various social accounts showing how dedicated you are to working over time and how you're doing it for the team dispite not getting paid!
3. ??
4. Profit!
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
Yes! (Score:4, Funny)
In fact answer all interview questions with: "None of your business" or "I don't see how that's relevant". If pressed act paranoid and ask if they're secretly with the government.
I also recommend walking in and setting the interviewer's desk and chair on fire. After all you need a way to distinguish yourself from other candidates. If you still aren't sure you'vet made an impression you can poke them in the eye just to be absolutely certain.
Well either that or you can just realise that everything on the web is public and that when you're interviewing for a job any employer might not be able to by law hire at their whim, but in practice that's how it works. If you're a professional keep your public information respectable, or use a pseudonym that isn't easily traced back to you. Drunken photos and rants about sexual exploits are not a good career move. In some circumstances participating in a flame war is inadvisable.
Re:No, they don't (Score:0, Funny)
I don't like your name and I don't like your lack of work history. I saw your MySpace, and I don't like the fact that you have KFC as a friend. I want applicants with low self-esteem and mortgages and families and I want to work them 80 hours a week until they're burnt out. Then I take out insurance policies on their lives and have HR delete them from the roster of life.
And in case you didn't know, as a hiring manager, I am a cocksucker. All other hiring managers and HR personnel such as myself are also cocksuckers, and making people miserable makes our dicks grow.
name != unique identifier (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why should they stop snooping (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm.... From that search string I would guess you are:
'Greg Barton', and not 'Greg "Farton" Barton' as your schoolmates used to call you. (And then proceeded to google-bomb unquoted searches for your name) Last summer you had a really nice vacation to Java and all, however it quickly turned bad after arriving in Indonesia.
The Java vacation photos: Good.
The Indonesia vacation photos: Bad, especially the ones where you've got white powder remains under your nose and two (rather cute) young Indonesian boys on each arm. (Legalities keep you safe)
That kayak accident? Real nasty. A moments of inattention and the world lost one of the best piano players of Mozart's great works. You every right in the world to blow up like that, he was just plain _rude_.
You love football. The one where they use their feet.
Bad taste warning! (Score:3, Funny)
" Googling someone to see if they're a Nazi child molester on the no-fly list is perfectly legal, and as a hiring manager, you can bet I'm going to keep doing it.
But don't Nazi children deserve to be molested?
Re:No, they don't (Score:1, Funny)
Why would that make me look bad?!
Re:Why should they stop snooping (Score:5, Funny)
I have something similar in my resume to help employers filter out the irrelevant things:
"John Doe" -drunk -idiot -fired -"bad worker" -theft -stole
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Funny)
What you mean like taking out a loan to pay for your US college education ?
Re:Well (Score:3, Funny)
Things were so much better in the old days in Siberia, where everyone knew of Frosty Piss.
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Funny)
Potential employer "We saw some bad stuff about you on the Internet."
You: "Well, I saw some pretty crappy stuff about you too, but I certainly don't believe everything I read on the Internet. Or did you really have sex with a goat AND a chicken?"
Employers that are that clueless and can't adapt to the new realities won't last, so you're better off looking elsewhere anyway.
Nice work you did in Jamestown, but... (Score:2, Funny)
I see by a Google Search you've been dead since 1631, and we don't hire your kind here. By your kind of course I mean zombies.