Job Applicant, Beware: You're Being Googled

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... or as they say in Kirkoswald, "breakfast, lunch and dinner"

 

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they do in my house

 

Well there's more than one of me on the internet, I even emailed one of my name sakes a few years back

 

So far... I got nothin'.

 

This site is not me by the way! http://mrnerdy.multiply.com/

 

Maybe I don't exsist

or maybe I am a consious sole who thinks its a live but isn't.

 

Thanks to BosonMichael for taking up the challenge, though the info was quite readily available from my web-site listed in my profile. I was just thinking of other less easily identifiable info, eg some flame-ridden posts on various blogs/forums where differences of opinion have been expressed. No-one particularly wants these read back to them a few years later! The only other thing I could think of was some poems I published on the web. Could an employer be interested in these? Surely not. Nothing defamatory in any way. Even the considerable powers of the US Army intelligence core could not locate these though, I am sure!

Cheers,
Ross

 

Yep, I did make use of that... which gave me enough leverage to find some of the other stuff I found.

Nope... I didn't find anything that I could say was specifically yours. And certainly nothing that would have taken you out of consideration.

I'm about 15 years out of practice.

 

I googled my name and apparently I work as a landscaper and have a degree on organizational management from Purdue. My first name is common, but my last name is not.

One other time I checked, I found two other people with the same name although the websites had their names mispelled so it matched mine. ie there name only had 1 g, where mine has 2. One guy was an insurance sales man and the other as a college football player that was being scouted by the pros.

This is one of the dangers of googling potential employees. HR people need to make sure they are looking at the right person.

 

I once googled myself when I had my birth surname, apparently I was a coal miner working freelance in Russia and had 6 children.

The funny thing is this guy had also lived at a previous address of mine

 

When my real name is googled the only thing that comes up is thousands of links to a famous book auction house. I'd like to say I setup a successful worldwide business as a smokescreen to cover my tracks, but I'd be lying.

 

Well i have one of the most common surname so i just get loads and loads of stuff

 

I've found a few ManicMonkeys

 

lol

 

This act is in some ways similar to a prospective employer parking his car outside your house at night and watching you. It verges on harassment.

Provided you can do the job, and keep your personal life away from work, I don't see the trouble.

 

I disagree. In IT a sysadmin basically has the "keys to the kingdom" as far as the business he/she works for is concerned. That means they have to be highly trustworthy, or the business takes a huge financial risk in hiring them. That risk is not only for the business owner, but also the all the rest of the employees as they will lose big time if a dishonest sysadmin decides to take down a business for their own personal gain, some form of revenge, or just for kicks.

A person's personal life says a lot about their character, their reliability, whether they are stable, honest, dishonest, have issues that make them vulnerable to blackmail, etc.... Any employer in their right mind would want to know those things before they hire a person and place them in a position of responsibility.

Being technically sound is only a small part of being a sysadmin, network admin, or even a computer repair person. So, as an employee's personal life is very relevant to their character a business has a legitimate need to know about a person's personal life.

 

Agree, wholeheartedly. How do you KNOW that someone is reliable and can keep their "personal life away from work" unless you do your research first? As Freddy mentioned, it's a HUGE financial risk for a company to hire the wrong person in IT. If there are ANY red flags at all, I want to know about them BEFORE I tell them, "Welcome to the company, here's the administrator password."

 

I'm sure people used to enjoy themselves outside of work before the likes of facebook came around.

Mind you if you're daft enough to leave your profile open to everyone, then maybe you deserve what you get - I don't know.

 

Before Facebook, employers did things the old fashioned way: they ran a background check. Or, they didn't, and they took the risk... sometimes, to their detriment.

Until you've been faced with a rogue admin, you have no idea what kind of damage they can cause.

For the record, I enjoy myself outside of work... I just don't do anything stupid that's gonna come back and haunt me.

 

QFT! Well, I do have a few ghost in my closet. However, I have that door bolted and nail closed so they can get out. And if you try to nark me out I'll put you in there with them!