Reputation 2.0
Reputation is defined as the opinion of the public toward a person, a group of people, or an organization. More specifically, online reputation is a growing concern in this Web 2.0 world of networking and recruiting.
I decided I wanted to write my next recruiting post related to online reputation and the effects some social media sites have on it. Even if you currently are not looking for a job, your online reputation is everything. Just like your credit score, it’s a perception of how you function in life as a human being. Regardless of your present job situation, evidence is growing that show companies do care what you say and what others say about you online. Even if you’re not a popular blogger with your own domain site, companies can view your online reputation within minutes.
In a recent survey by a social network, 59% of employers are influenced by what they find on a candidate’s social network profile and/or online in general.
As a recruiter for 9 years and counting, reputation used to be based on a reference check or a referral. If I found “John Doe” on CareerBuilders.com and I thought he may be a good match for my company’s position, I would bring him to my office for an initial screening and then ask him to provide me two references. These references would then be the avenue in which we assessed the person’s reputation and credibility.
Now, with the creation of social media and web 2.0, reputation has taken a new course. Do you know that recruiters, HR departments, headhunters, and hiring managers not only do background and reference checks, but will also go online to assess your online reputation? Do you think it was smart to post that video on YouTube that showed you and a few friends doing a prank to a neighbor? Or what about those heated, political comments you left on a MySpace bulletin one night after a few drinks? Did you publicly breakup with your partner and then leave a personal yet humiliating message to him/her one night? It’s not as private as you may have thought.
Below are three main areas of where recruiters and your employer may begin assessing your reputation online…
(1) “Google You” – the first and easiest assessment of your reputation online is to google (or yahoo/MSN/altavista) the candidate’s name. These results can vary from your high school entry in your online yearbook to an award you won in college. They also can show results of one’s picture with one’s girlfriend or fraternity brothers on a MySpace page. If you tag your name to any image on any social media site, it can be easily found. “Googling a potential candidate” also shows what social media sites he or she is involved in and some of these sites could be considered questionable by your potential employer.
(2) Blogging – anyone knows that all someone has to do is create a google alert with your name on it and anything that’s in a blog (video, picture, text) has the potential of showing up in one of the several search engines around the world. Blogging has become a controversial topic between employees and employers because some argue that every one has the right to express themselves in any way they see fit. If it’s not on company time then it’s not my company’s business, right? Others argue that your blog and personal branding online can damage the reputation of your employer. So where does the line get drawn? A lot of companies require their new employees to sign an “exclusivity agreement” as well as a “Code of Ethics.” In a Code of Ethics, most companies have now begun to create a “blogging policy”. While it’s true that some companies allow you to blog as long as you leave the company’s name out of it, others absolutely discourage your right to blog about anything, depending on the level of your position. And if you sign this code and continue blogging, your employer has the right to terminate you.
(3) Social Media Sites – Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Pownce, etc. All of the profiles you build, comments you leave, videos you post, tweets you write and other personal promotion can lead to your potential employer OR your current employer making an assessment of you, regardless if it’s accurate or not. Recruiters are using MySpace and Facebook not only as network venues but also to pre-screen their candidates before presenting them to their hiring managers. Assessing your online reputation is huge. Companies are all about assessing risk and that even goes with assessing the risk of hiring a potentially controversial or unethical employee. Take it from me, I recently learned that every message I write on Twitter is indexed by Google. Therefor, I have the potential of someone reading one “tweet” completely out of context. It was eye opening for me.
These are just three ways for anyone to assess your online reputation. What you create about you is the most easily controlled. What others say about you or how they react to a comment you made or a video you published is much harder to control. The reason I wrote this post is to make people more aware of your online reputation. Your “online footprint” isn’t in sand… rather it’s in wet cement and it can stay online for years and years to come.
If you’re further interested in managing your online reputation, LifeHacker wrote a brillant article about how you can begin managing your online reputation proactively.
I’d also LOVE to hear YOUR comments about this. Do you feel like companies and recruiters are taking this too far? Is this an argument about freedom of speech or privacy issues? I’d love to hear your comments below.
Tags: blogging, Career Topics, code of ethics, employer, Job, Online reputation, privacy, Social Media
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
This is fascinating to me, and I have a lot of questions. The biggest one being, where does the online reputation search go if the candidate is named… I don't know, Dave Peterson? There are more Dave Petersons around than trees in a forest. I recently Googled my name and I couldn't find me (just checked again and found one blog post that was me). The more distinct identifier would be an email address. so I just checked mine. Zero returns. Now, if I give my more distinct blog/domain name to a potential employer, that at least gives them a place to start, but what's done when this information isn't offered or (suppressed shudder) the candidate doesn't have a web site? Of course, anywhere (like Twitter) where I've locked down the user name "davepeterson" and removed all doubt by linking in a photo, it does get easier. I Google my Twitter name and I do get a few results (mostly Cali Lewis saying nice things about me, so that's more than okay). I've left footprints all over the Internet, but if I didn't know exactly where (and where not) I think I'd have a hard time finding myself. Great post! Very thought provoking. I'm off to check out your LifeHacker link.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
[...] Jeff McCord wrote an interesting post today on Reputation 2.0Here’s a quick excerptDo you think it was smart to post that video on YouTube that showed you and a few friends doing a prank to a neighbor? Or what about those heated, political comments you left on a MySpace bulletin one night after a few drinks? … [...]
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
In this age of easy access to so much information and our collective willingness to post details about our personal, business and even "private" lives, the demarkation lines from business to personal to private have not just been blurred but blown away. As a department head of a medium size company I can understand why my employer might get restless if I posted anything of a negative nature about our company or even just our business; especially anything negative about a client. I can also see where my employer might frown if I were posting about going out and partying all night long, drinking or doing anything of a morally questionable nature. As an executive or department head I represent my company 24/7, whether I'm okay with that or not. As a culture we have only just begun to understand the full implications of everything we are getting from the days of Web 2.0, and everything we are giving up. Privacy is becoming something we can't afford to live without and something we may not know how to keep. The decision will come down to simply this question, "How much of our lives do we put on the web for all to see and when should we start worrying about what is on the web." Think of this, political campaigns have been damaged by words spoken decades prior. The children of today may have a very hard time in the world of tomorrow when some reporter easily finds comments about doing this or that in a backroom some where. Possible mates may find details about their loved ones from 20 years ago that they just can't get over that today would probably have kept safely in the dark. What's the point, the point is simply this, keeping secrets means not telling anyone even your blog. The hard part is knowing what needs to be a secret and what doesn't when you are 15 years old.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Kelly, I couldn't agree more. Well said!
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Dave, you bring up some great points. It's definitely worth another post, in my opinion, on ways to keep things private. But you're right, I don't think a recruiter is just going to click on "Jane Doe" and make the assumption that Jane Doe is the Jane Doe they're recruiting. That being said, we can search email addresses, former companies' websites, comments etc with any candidate's name. You'd be surprised (generally more of the younger generation) at the amount of questionable content we've seen on Myspace, Youtube and even Facebook from our OWN employees.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for the good advice. I had my first job experience where I blogged about my boss on a Myspace blog and I found out later that they found it. The blog entry was a terrible emotional moment that I shouldn't have published cause it was a momentary outburst. I later deleted the blog entry after they had read it and apologized for my attitude. They knew I was young so they didn't take any action on it but I learned quickly from that experience to not post and be emotional. After I have read through and edited a blog entry a few times I have usually eliminated bad emotional outbursts that don't really help the blog entry remain interesting and informative.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
While I do feel like employers making judgments about candidates based on information procured through inherently social networks is an invasion of privacy and that the decision should rest entirely on a personal opinion of the candidate and their relevant qualifications and characteristics, anyone ridiculous enough to blog or twitter about anything they don't expect to be perfectly public (guilty) probably deserves whatever ramifications such indiscretion may inflict upon them.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
[...] Reputation 2.0: Jeff McCord looks at the importance of one’s online reputation when entering the trenches of the job search in his post titled, Reputation 2.0. [...]
May 9th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Invasion of privacy? What application can privacy possibly have in this context? Information you put online is available in a matter of seconds to hundreds of millions of people around the world–and it's information, for the most part, that you consciously chose to make public. It isn't exactly as if they've tapped your phone line or are reading your email.