More Warnings Against Oversharing on MySpace 383
Skapare writes "Your next prospective employer might be watching your MySpace page, according to a story at the New York Times. And if you think Facebook is more private, maybe not if that prospective employer has an intern from the same school checking up on you." From the article: "Students may not know when they have been passed up for an interview or a job offer because of something a recruiter saw on the Internet. But more than a dozen college career counselors said recruiters had been telling them since last fall about incidents in which students' online writing or photographs had raised serious questions about their judgment, eliminating them as job candidates."
Woohoo! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Woohoo! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it's so much better to hire a candidate who conducts his dirty business in secret -- embezzling, clandestine affairs with the secretaries, etc.
It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
these employers using google and myspace to research their prospective employees may as well be basing their decisions on the bible or the magic 8 ball.
There are many people who can quickly switch personalities to a work mode, many of the most intelligent are also the most eccentric as well. Passing people up because of eccentricity, quirks, or political views will harm employers in the end.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:4, Insightful)
And this point brings up something really scary. What happens when you use your rights to privacy, and choose not to post anything about your private life on the Internet? Do employers start interviewing MySpace users first (because they are at least a known quantity), or even dropping your resume completely?
IMO, this is just a question of references. If you are able to provide suitable character and work references on your resume, then your employers shouldn't be considering additional references that you did not provide. Maybe it will be decided that listing MySpace as a reference is acceptable, but there is no guarantee as to accuracy. Prospective employers don't have the right (as far as I know) to call random co-workers from your past, your drinking buddies, or your old high school friends to dig for dirt. I can't imagine that they would examine the transcript of an argument you got in at a bar, which is what a lot of online flames degenerate to. If employees want their online lives evaluated, it should be optional, with no reasonable expectation of consequence if they refuse.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2)
What do you mean "do not have the right?" It is you who doesn't have the right to hide what's in plain sight. If you have posted information for the whole world to see, how can you reasonably expect the whole world to look at it? And why is it that the prospective employee should be able to completely control where the prospective employer gets his information?
There are some concerns about whether or not the future boss is looking at
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who goes googling for me on the internet is going to find that apparently there are a number of people who think really highly of me as a coworker.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, employers don't want to work with people who publicly admit using drugs and dirty sex as their recreational time.
It may appear sad but it's the terrible truth
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2, Troll)
Come on, when I tried to take a look at MySpace, my eyes almost fell out. It was truly a traumatic experience. Please, don't even try to claim that an intelligent -- or even just sentient -- being would come anywhere near that site.
There may be intelligent people with a lack of good taste, but every page of ~10 I dared to look at on MySpace was beyond all reasonable limites.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't very intelligent if they post about it publicly online.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps they feel the value of having a place, public or not, where they can vent themselves is worth the price of a couple missed jobs due to employers who demand that people they consider for jobs be identically stiff at work and away from work.
Honestly, I would not want to work for any employer who thought that they should have any control whatsoever over my personal life when it is not affecting my work, nor one who considered me incapable of conducting myself professionally based on completely unrelated situations.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always view these types of things as great filters, removing the people from my life that I would not want to associate with anyway. Don't like me because I'm funny/had purple hair when I was younger/listen to Dream Theater/love Sushi/am left handed/have OMG, political views/get drunk once in a while/whatever? Oh well, have a nice life.
Who really cares what they find out about me? I don't apologize for having freedom and using it; and I accept the consequences of the same. I don't want to associate with people (including employers) who would first hunt down that information and second use it to discriminate against me in some way. With friends/employers like that, who needs enemies?
(And ya, I realize the irony in posting this as a more or less anonymous identity, but this is
Parent +1 Gets it. (Score:2, Insightful)
What if it is fake? (Score:2)
So what if someone went off and created a profile for me? Posted the untrue story about me calling into a conference call while in a hot tub (I was sitting next to it and the clean cycle went off). I'll admit I did call in from a bar on a beach in Jamaca while on a cruise and yes I did call in from the delivery room after our first child was born but the kid was asleep and the mother said she didn't mind.
You could really do a numb
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more.
From where I stand, companies seem to want to control every single aspect of their employers' lives - so if you do not conform to the company standards in all aspects of your life, you are not really wanted here, thank you.
I mean, how else can one explain the fact that your personal life can influence your getting a/the job?
Maybe you'll have to fight for improvements in anti-discrimination laws...
I, for one, hide nothing.
It's not that I have nothing to hide; in normal life I hide
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, the damaging information about those people, information that they personally posted, is out there for anyone to access. This time the bosses happen to access them but what about the prospective clients and business partners? Independently of that person's competence and professional attitude, what damage can a public profile like that bring to a company?
As I see it this has a lot in common with politics. What does it matter if a political candidate smoked pot or even if he's into S&M? Isn't his competence the only thing that matters? Yet, when the public learns about those details the would-be politician is automatically done for, even if the voters or political opponents do as bad or even worse than him. It's all about public image and if someone is involved in socially questionable things and if that information passes to that person's professional environment and life, then obviously it will have an impact.
Oh and let's not forget that the person in question bragged about doing drugs, which not only is considered ilegal in a lot of countries but it can also, at least to some extent, be a liability.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
I refer you further up in this story to the post from the guy who happens to have a shared name, age, and major with someone else.
In truth, when you google someone's name or search for it on myspace there is no guarantee it's the same person.. you may as well be shaking your magic 8 ball: "is this employee responsible and cordial?"? "ask again later"
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2)
Sometimes just not liking golf can kill your career just as much as enjoying various unsavory hobbies.
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2)
The problem with getting a job is that the interviewer is often instructed to find a particular person that will "fit into" the company. Sometimes this is done by a personality test, sometimes by interviews, sometimes on the basis of superficial qualities. The challange, expecially to the large firm, is that the government often limits on what can disqualify a candidate. In these cases, finding
Depends on the job surely? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes a marketting job could well do with someone who stands out. For a lot of real jobs it don't matter shit. You don't care what your plumber did in school did you?
But for a lot of the more exciting/succesfull jobs who you are matters because the risk for choosing the wrong person are high.
Tell me, what kind of pilot do you want. One who leads a perfectly boring life who just spend a quiet weekend home with his wife and kids or one who just spend the weekend on a drug and booze filled rampage? Who do you want managing your stocks. Someone with all the political motivation of a jellyfish or someone who firmly believes money is the root of all evil?
Do you want an eccentric person in charge or a nuclear powerplant. A police officer with quircks, a judge with political views (especially one that doesn't agree with yours)?
Luckily most people never need to worry about this. There are plenty of jobs out there where they don't give a shit what you do in your private life. And I can't help but feel that if you want a bigger job then you should be willing to adjust what you do in your private life so you can get the big bucks.
If you want to be your own person in your personal life then the price is that you will have to accept the kind of job where your personal life don't matter. The fast majority of jobs will be open to you. Sure the fast majority of jobs also have bad pay and are boring but hey, at least you got a full and un-spyed upon private life.
There's something to this, in fairness. (Score:3, Informative)
A blog full of half-literate paeans to partying does suggest that you are overeducated and perhaps incompetent.
Smart people often break taboos: Richard Feynman loved strip clubs and Paul Erdös took amphetamines, to name but a couple.
Re:There's something to this, in fairness. (Score:3, Interesting)
Smart people often break taboos: Richard Feynman loved strip clubs and Paul Erdös took amphetamines, to name but a couple.
I think your first statement had it right:-
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but passing up people that post pictures of themselves violating several local laws whilst naked is not necessarily a bad idea. Have you seen some people's facebook pages? "Hi there, I'm completely wasted and people are drawing on me with a permanent marker. Hire me?"
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2, Funny)
What's she look like? I might have an opening.
KFG
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:2)
There is such a thing as being too perfect, Frankly I'd rather try to defend my flaws than try to claim I'm perfect, because really nob
Re:It's as much the employer's loss here (Score:3, Interesting)
Vapid isn't the word you are looking for (Score:2)
I have a very vapid social life but Im pretty sure that employers will still flock to me. Searching on goolge will result in the fact that I like robots, I once counted gypsy mothes, and I one a scholarship. The only thing that doesn't belong is Kaiju Big Battel.
More news from the obvious forefront (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More news from the obvious forefront (Score:2)
I do not post anything under my real name that I would be ashamed of my mother reading. I pretty much just write reviews for gadgets on newegg under my real name. I don'
Re:More news from the obvious forefront (Score:2)
Modern Net Exhibitionism and Slutism ... (Score:5, Funny)
Come on (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people need spines.
Overhype, Inc? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Overhype, Inc? (Score:2)
But maybe I should add some funny pictures of myself online - if for nothing else then because an employer stupid enough to trust something like that is not one I would work for
Re:Overhype, Inc? (Score:2)
5. to observe secretively or furtively with hostile intent (often fol. by on or upon).
There is nothing hostile about checking a prospective employee for idiocy off the site. That idiocy is what allowed those VA records to be stolen. Don't want to look like a fool? Don't act like one. If you post info on a public forum, expect all sections of the public to have access.
This is hard to wrap the mind around, how?
Not only MySpace... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not only MySpace... (Score:2)
That is why people don't (Score:2)
Re:That is why people don't (Score:2)
Re:Not only MySpace... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not only MySpace... (Score:2)
In any case the point stands: If you don't want to have what you are posting to Slashdot (or similar places) to be attached to your name in 10 years time, do
It's really a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Google for potential candidates (Score:4, Insightful)
Every so often, I get an email from someone I've never heard of, asking how I've been and why I never respond to email at some other account. Turns out there's someone else with my name, of a similar age (well, plus or minus 5 years, I guess), in the same country, and studying informatics of some form (AI rather than CS). Also, he appears to be impossible to find contact details for. I'm not making this up, and unless spammers have suddenly become much more intelligent and literate (and created a specialist website to back up their story), these are quite genuine requests.
What's to guarantee that the person a company finds on Myspace or Livejournal - I don't know much about Facebook - is the same person they're actually considering employing? I'd be quite upset to find I'm suddenly employed and expected to be an expert in genetic algorithms, when my total experience with them is a couple of lectures several years ago. Names aren't unique, and sometimes there are enough similarities that I'm contacted by people who believe they know me personally.
Re:Google for potential candidates (Score:2)
Re:Google for potential candidates (Score:2)
As someone who has actually had a responsible job and been in the hiring process I will let you into a secret. Either you use a bit of intelligence to cross-check that the person posting the views is the person being interviewed (same email, same pseudo, same home address etc) or when you interview the person you ask them:
Do you hav
Re:Google for potential candidates (Score:2)
My employer (Score:3, Informative)
But I did not know the person, nor did anyone I knew, so it had no effect on the hiring of them.
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be a harsh way to do things, and some may argue that work should stay work and personal life should be private, but if you compromise yourself publically on the web - expect to reap what you sow.
Good thing this doesn't happen to doctors (Score:5, Insightful)
What seems kinda silly is however to go to far with this. The odd thing is that those kids who do extreme things are the ones who do best in real life. I should know, I didn't as a kid and I am very mediocre in my adult life.
Who do you want in your company? Joe Average or somebody going places? For certain jobs yes somebody with a solid boring past is perhaps best. Chartered accountants would be nice to know they never ever broke any law of any kind ever. Read up on Arthur Andersen [wikipedia.org] to see what happens when you go from the boring accountants to the exciting ones.
What is a problem is that people who do stuff like posting pictures of themselves smoking pot online then seem to want the kind of job that calls for people who think a cup of tea is a rollercoaster ride. There are just certain kind of proffesions where your entire life will come under close scrutiny. It doesn't matter so much as what you did but how easily it can be found out. Have an affair as president just don't let it get into the papers.
The problem is that we fear overlap. Is the guy who smoked pot in college still doing it? That doesn't really even matter, cocaine has a certain respectability. What matters, is he still stupid enough to post evidence of criminal behaviour for the entire world to see?
Women especially are truly stupid in this regard. Take your top off in front of a camera and those pictures WILL find their way onto the internet. Surely everyone knows this by now? Yes women still take their kit off and act all suprised when they end up on the net. How much are you willing to bet that if these women ever want to have a position with any importance later in life these pictures will come back to haunt them?
I bring this up because I recently had a rather weird discussion with a co-worker about this whose pictures off an art thing she did in university came up. She was full frontal in some play they did. It was art. When I asked her why none of her fellow male students were in any kind of naked state she was unable to find a reason. I noticed this before. A lot of times women in art go naked while the males telling them it is for art keep their clothes on. Odd that.
But she is now known on the workfloor not for her brains or years of good work but her perky tits. This doesn't matter if like me you got no ambition but if you want to move up who do you think they are going to choose. The guy who jerked off to naked girls or the girl that got naked?
Life ain't fair, that boss who drives his suv while drunk will not hire the kid who smoked a joint and the boss who fucks his secretary half his age will not give a promotion to a woman who got her kit off. If you got ambition, think about what you do. And while it ain't entirely fair, I am not certain I want the world to be run by people who can't think ahead. Is somebody who can't think ahead about his own future really fit to think ahead about say a companies future or even the entire country?
Re:Good thing this doesn't happen to doctors (Score:2)
Well, you clearly didn't spend your time studying statistics...
Re:Good thing this doesn't happen to doctors (Score:2)
I seriously don't get this culture. As if seeing someone naked would be such a big thing. Sometimes I wonder how these people reproduce at all.
"Is somebody who can't think ahead about his own future really fit to think a
Re:Good thing this doesn't happen to doctors (Score:5, Funny)
link to pics,plz ; )
Re:Good thing this doesn't happen to doctors (Score:2)
Except, a lot of the people "going places" (to the extent that their more spectacular youthful indescretions are an indication of their future ways of being) are going... to jail. Or rehab.
Acute exhuberance and risky behavior does not necessarily lead to or imply life-long resourcefulness, or creativity, or diligence, or leadership. Sometimes it's just a form of self-medication by adrenaline for slightly (or very) broken people. The
elpapacito, may introduce The Real World (Score:3, Interesting)
The simple fact is that what you describe as wrong is just the way it is. You can try to change it and you may be successfull, after all the days women were considered totally incapable of doing anything but be mothers and nurses is long gone (says a while middle aged male who thinks a glass ceiling is nice for letting in natural light) so maybe one day th
Duh! (Score:2, Insightful)
I never use my real name as a handle except where I want people to know who I am. Generally in these cases the online has a basis in real life (a forum discussing a conference or something). But for sites like Slashdot, I can post anything I like and people are not going to be able to associate my comments with me
Re:Duh! (Score:2)
But they made it an ALL NEW STORY by taking out the word "blog" (which was all over the 2005 edition of this story) and replacing it with "MySpace" (tres 2006)!
For that matter, I remember seeing the same story in the early 90s, but the magic buzzword was "Usenet". The venue changes but the inane paranoia remains...
Re:Duh! (Score:2)
That's fairly naive, you know. Right now it's relatively difficult to work out your real name from your Slashdot or other handle, but it will only get easier over time. Certainly an
Re:Duh! (Score:2)
You may be right that it's impossible right now, but I would guess it won't stay that way. Here are a couple of ways to do it:
1. Download all of the Slashdot archives. (Google has probably done this already.) Look for writing styles that match yours. That will probably be enough to make a pretty good guess at your 12-15 handles, and may be enough to recognize your writing style on so
Re:Duh! (Score:2)
You may not be aware of this, CmdrTaco doesn't like to advertise it much, but one of the Google Summer of Code projects from last year involved creating an API to interface between Slashdot and the Google Search engine... not to search Google though, for Google to search Slashdot and all its logs going back to 1998. Very disturbing stuff. I don't have the link available r
Re:Duh! (Score:2)
Ofcourse... (Score:2)
Just imagine a client looking up an adress or email to contact someone he had a meeting with / phone conversation or anything really, and stumbling on ms. X her profile where she's whoring herself or any content that could be offensive to any of your clients.
There are things where you want to keep neutral about as a company (political issues, current affairs, racism ...) or do not want to be associated with (mentions or display of druguse, your amateur porn movie, stories about how slutty you are, ignoranc
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Unnecessary fear by employers (Score:2)
Guess what? That was the only part of the company (AFAIK) which was a real team, and the only department in the company which made a real profit.
So, just because your name shows up in the internet no questionable sites shouldn't b
Re:Unnecessary fear by employers (Score:2)
It works both ways of course (Score:5, Interesting)
You might find that the higly professional lady wearing a smart business suit spends her weekends dressed up in strange clothing and hanging around with a motorcycle gang, to pick a real example at random.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It works both ways of course (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you mean protective stuff, leathers or tough textiles or whatnot? The kind of thing anyone with a quarter of a brain should be wearing if riding a motorcyle?
Or do you mean she's wearing LARPing gear on the weekends, and for some reason the 'gang' doesn't send her far, far away?
"Strange clothing" (Score:2)
Re:It works both ways of course (Score:2)
Not only your (future) employer is watching.. (Score:3, Interesting)
""I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software. He is far from alone in noticing that fast-growing social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster are a snoop's dream.
New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals."
Full story at: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025
Employer Filter (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly many people who are creating myspace sites have a strange relationship with this very public forum. On one hand they view it and understand it as public. It is the web afterall and everyone is just a Google search away. But yet they still seem to place a psychological shield around it. So while they surely must know it is public, they still regard it as somehow very private and personal ("my space") and are shocked when people hold them accountable for the information content they advertise.
Re:Employer Filter (Score:3, Informative)
Agreed
Re:Employer Filter (Score:2)
Congratulations; I think you managed to sum up everything that's wrong with America... completely unindended too :(
(for the dim: neither of these shouldhave been controversial in any way)
Re:Employer Filter (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly my feelings, and something I'm surprised I don't hear more of on Slashdot beneath these types of stories. Instead, I see hundreds of geeks clamoring to say "Keep your mouth shut and stay repressed in your personal life! Only then can you land the job that will also force you to keep your mouth shut and stay repressed in your professional life!"
I think things. I think them at home, and I think the
Same problem with UseNet (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, at that time we were quite naive and none of us realised what the Internet would turn into.
When Google released the Usenet archives for searching I had to scamper to get all my posts (hundreds of them) removed from the archive, as my employers would probably not have been too pleased - for a week or so my name in the google search engine produced thousands of posts none of which I am proud of now.
I've just spent my first five minutes at myspace. (Score:2)
what a bunch of crap?? did I miss something? annoying music- nothing redeeming, it's a big dating + a few other features site?
every user page looks awful, and they all load with music -- my average webbrowsing session is multiple site windows open- this would kill me..
No, I'm sorry (Score:2, Funny)
Thanks... (Score:2)
Actually, the problem is... (Score:2)
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Go ahead and check my MySpace, my piss, my driving record, and my credit record. I ain't perfect, but I'm a good worker and I get the job done, and there's probably about 200 million others of me in this country so STFU.
rhY
Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)
So teenagers never get fooled by 40 year-old guys pretending to be seventeen?
One less idiot on the job (Score:3, Insightful)
Well. It's so hilariously obvious it's funny.
One must really be a non-hireable idiot if he thinks he can post anything on the Internet and then stay anonymous.
Not just MySpace... (Score:5, Interesting)
In it he had written...
-That he was currently suspended from work for misuse of IT equipment.
-That his current duties were less technical than the impression he'd given in the interview.
-That he wasn't really interested in the position we were offering and would be hoping to leave within a few months.
Needless to say he didn't get the position.
His blog also went into some detail about his sexual fetishes. This wouldn't have been a reason not to employ him, but it might have made things a bit awkward in the office especially with him not knowing we knew and such.
The recruiters should be just as cautious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The recruiters should be just as cautious (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole thing seems like a bad idea.
Public Data (Score:3, Informative)
Not saying you are a loser beacuse you have a stupid webpage, but its not worth the risk if you have stupid stuff posted up there.
And if you think that is invasive, wait until you get a 'security clearance audit'.. Then they come to your house personally..
I think it's a great idea (Score:2, Insightful)
MySpace or Elsewhere (Score:2)
So far that practise hasn't turned up anything really interesting though. If any of
First Hand Experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, etc.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if they can't, like posting you're gay for instance, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. People are a slave to their preferences and if a person doesn't like gays, you're less likely to get the job.
Also people need to realize that if you post it on the internet, it may forever be unretractable. Think that picture is gone just because you deleted it from Photobucket? Think again. It may be on the next CD of 2,000+ images of college girls gone wild. Same goes for your friends posting photos/stories of you. It may be gone for years. Then surface when you run for public office.
People have to realize that hiring someone is difficult. I Google people before offering every time as resumes and interviews can only go so far. MTF, since we do internet work, if I DON'T find any trace of someone online that will set of red flags.
If stalking on the Internet is okay, then so is (Score:3, Insightful)
Henry Ford used to hire private investigators to follow his employees around to check on their moral fiber. No doubt hornier employers used PI's to find blackmail fodder against female employees. And male, too.
There's no business reason to spy on people. We've gotten along for thousands of years with employers being in the dark, and they can damned stay that way. There are however an infinite number of evil reasons to spy on people.
I wonder how many politicians and businessmen will let their private lives be monitored by their employess. After all, politiicians are public employees, and therefore subject to monitoring. And businessmen are entrusted with corporate licenses, granted by the public through the government, and so therefore should be watched closely, with publically available records datamined from all possible sources, including sex lives and phone conversations.
This is hell on earth. And not many people give a damn.
Re:Be careful how you try to close your accounts (Score:2)
Re:Be careful how you try to close your accounts (Score:2)
When he tried to cancel, sending the request was easy, but the instructions they sent back was very unreasonable. Somewhere along the lines of taking a picture of yourself holding a sign saying you wanted to cancel then uploading that picture to your account, then sending anot