It’s no secret that HR departments regularly search for their current and prospective employees on the Internet, and so it’s easy to find advice on how not to be found. But if your job description involves the Internet, I would argue that hiding your online tracks could be a bad career move. Maybe I’m just a snob, but I don’t lend much credence to technology workers whom I can’t find on the Internet (and no, your LinkedIn profile doesn’t count). For example, if I was a hiring manager and you applied for a job in IT at my company, I would be looking for your technology-oriented blog and/or any open source projects that you’ve contributed to, because I want to be assured of your passion for technology. Failing that, I should at the very least be able to find some forum or newsgroup posts to prove that you’ve actually worked with a computer before. But if I looked for you and found nothing, I would just be disappointed.
My point is that when your job depends on the Internet, your online presence automatically becomes an extension of your resume (whether you like it or not). What I don’t understand is why more people don’t use this to their advantage. Rather than hiding yourself, why not make sure you can be found easily? That way, you can be sure that anyone searching for you will only see what you want them to see. Yes, I’m basically describing a propaganda campaign against HR, but the point is to show yourself in the best possible light to anyone you might have a professional relationship with. As long as you’re not spreading disinformation, there is no ethical dilemma.
Taking this to its logical conclusion, the idea of multiple (completely segregated) online “personalities” is a no-brainer to me. Just use your full name on everything you want people to find, and use a pseudonym for everything that you don’t. As long as your multiple “personalities” can’t be discovered from one another, you’re good.
5 Comments
you know, i’ve been slowly reducing my full name presence on the web, but this is something i’ve thought about a lot (or a bit, i guess, unless you consider a lot to be some 1/50000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000th of the total thought processing i’ve lent in my life). i don’t think it’s rare for anybody who grew up posting under a pseudonym to think about the ‘hr effect,’ but still it is funny to see these sorts of thoughts echoed by you.
the weird thing is that i think you and i could totally get along if it weren’t for the fact that i ruined the gyrate experiment…though sometimes i wonder if you apppreciated that more than you let on. anyway, dude, <3 bloarzeyd & gin. :)
haha, lots of people think they ruined the old gyrate.org. it’s ok, i got bored with babysitting it anyway.
I recently had the joy of polishing up my resume and realized that I am using a heavily modified design from a resume you posted a couple of years ago. I figured I’d say thanks, so, thanks.
is your resume on your “professional” website, like mine is? ;)
I just wanted to drop in and say that I was looking at the source code to my website and it still uses gHTML :)
Is this still your original website engine (I presume not)? Or is this wordpress now? frikk.tk still runs a gyrate.org-based engine which may now be the oldest in existence! :)
http://frikk.tk/php/
Blaine