So there’s all this foofaraw in the recruitosphere about Google and ZoomInfo staring over our shoulders and what the implications of our blog comments mean for future employment prospects, blah blah blah. People are asking that their comments be deleted from other people’s blogs, and making (I hope) jokes about other bloggers using their names and blah blah blah.
People, yes, employers will Google you. Yes, what you say on the Internet can come back and bite you in the ass. Yes, it can and does happen. But there’s a simple solution that doesn’t require all this hand-wringing and tiptoeing.
Don’t say crap on the Internet that you don’t want to have associated with your name.
This is not rocket science, people.
Involved in a heated debate with someone on someone else’s blog? While you’re typing out your responses, continue to ask yourself if what you’re saying reflects how you’d like to be known. And don’t rely on email conversations to stay private- once you put it in text and send it to someone, they’re perfectly free to post it to their own blogs.
In other words, use a little judgment, people. You shouldn’t have to ask for your comments to be taken down from other blogs, because you shouldn’t say things you aren’t willing to stand by. Being really, really mad is no excuse. If you wait until after you’ve cooled off to ask if you want what you’ve just said to show up in Google or ZoomInfo, you are TOO LATE.
Surely I am not the only person this has occurred to. But it also seems to me that, since I’ve been blogging for nearly 5 years now in one format or another (much longer than I’ve been recruiting), maybe I’ve just had more time to figure all this out?
(Did I make you mad? Wanna bash me in email or my comments? Watch out, I’ve been known to post emails, and I’m really not inclined to delete comments after the fact just to protect YOU. Also, I already own my eponymous domain names, so repeating my name a bunch on your own blog won’t hijack my Google juice, so don’t bother.)
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Checkout call center jobs at JobsInCallCenters.com.
Right on. Absolutely, unequivocally, right on.
I hijacked my Google juice for my real name from a musician and a comic book artist. Whenever my boss asked me if I was in a band, I said “SOB, I am going to get my name back”
I like the way you think!
We should get together for tea one day.
[...] [Recruiting Animal] in copy, you should delete this string before it gets archived in Google or (much more formidably) in [...]