Your online reputation

Talking of Facebook etc, as I was a lot last week, I was sent a link to this video on YouTube produced by Viadeo that highlights how your online behaviour can come back to haunt you at job interviews etc - funnily enough the guy in the video looks like an old mate of mine, Hugh, probably isn't though! The video ends with some interesting stats that show

• one in five employers have searched for and found personal info about candidates on the web
• 59% say that it has influenced their recruitment decisions
• 1/4 of HR decision makers say they have rejected applicants based on info found online

I guess what it shows is that employers will use whatever they can to ascertain if you're the right candidate or not. This and the case of the 118 118 employees reminds me of one of the first times I came across this sort of thing - Ellen Simonetti, the Queen of the sky who was fired by Delta Airlines because of photos on her blog. The thing to takeaway from this is that whatever you do online (blogs, social networking sites, forums etc), whether you intend it for public consumption or not can be used by your employer / potential employer and will impact on your working life, so managing your online reputation is going to become a real issue.

Comments

[Sarah Stimson]

I wrote about this yesterday too Tim. NetRep should be a growing concern - particularly for those looking for a new job. We've had candidates refused interviews because of things they've put on their Facebook/MySpace and blogs.

On a slightly different tangent. What do you think of Viadeo? I'm willing it to work for me, but I'm slowly going off it.

[TimElkington]

Hi Sarah

Agree about the NetRep, it's getting bigger as an issue all the time. As for Viadeo, I'm not sure, I've done so much stuff on LinkedIn that I'm not sure I'll bother with another 'professional' social networking site, unless the advantages in terms of functionality were really compelling and to be honest I haven't had the time to find out much about it!

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[TimElkington]

I thought this last comment looked a bit 'spammy', maybe it is, anyway I've left it live as the link could be quite interesting and could be good for SEO, it looks free to submit an article and looks like you can link back to your site via the author profile, could be useful?