TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume

For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:28:15 -0400

By ALAN FINDER
The New York Times
June 11, 2006

When a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a
summer intern this month, the company's president went online to check
on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of
Illinois.

At Facebook, a popular social networking site, the executive found the
candidate's Web page with this description of his interests: "smokin'
blunts" (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting
people and obsessive sex, all described in vivid slang.

It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done.

"A lot of it makes me think, what kind of judgment does this person
have?" said the company's president, Brad Karsh. "Why are you allowing
this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semipublicly?"

Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search
engines like Google and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors
looking for their first job. But now, college career counselors and
other experts say, some recruiters are looking up applicants on social
networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster, where
college students often post risqu=E9 or teasing photographs and
provocative comments about drinking, recreational drug use and sexual
exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy.

When viewed by corporate recruiters or admissions officials at
graduate and professional schools, such pages can make students look
immature and unprofessional, at best.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/us/11recruit.html?ex=3D1307678400&en=3Dddf=
be1e3b386090b&ei=3D5090

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