Watchdog your digital footprint
What’s your “digital footprint” saying about you? (I know. A new techie term pops up every minute.) Thank heavens for Wikipedia
Eight Crazy Nights psp Transporter 2 , although in this case the term “digital footprint” is being used in more of a slang way to indicate your online activity that is visible to others. Think: flickr, reunion.com
, MySpace Alone in the Dark film
, Facebook
, Twitter, etc. Employers and potential clients are far more likely to google candidates than ever before. The US courts have said this is ok and not an invasion of privacy. In fact, there is little protection for anyone because the Internet is a public domain.
On Fast Company.com they asked for comments on the question “Is Googling a potential employee before an interview fair game or just a blatant invasion of privacy?” and John Agno replied “Google is an end run around discrimination laws, inasmuch as employers can find out all manner of information–some of it for a nominal fee–that is legally off limits in interviews: your age, your martial status, the value of your house (along with an aerial photograph of it), the average net worth of your neighbors, fraternity pranks, stuff you wrote in college, liens, bankruptcies, political affiliations, and the names and ages of your children.” In the long-term, this right will likely be challenged, but for now you have to safeguard yourself and your reputation.
The same can be said of the potential clients of freelancers or solopreneurs. Unfortunately, though you may be an exemplary employee or service provider, there may be shock and horror on your part when you realize potential clients are seeing photos of you scantily clad on the dance floor in Maui or singing, badly, on YouTube
Bald psp . This isn’t going to enhance any one’s trust-despite the fact they were taken during your only vacation of the year.
If you do want to share your personal life and thoughts, use a pseudonym or separate identity for your MySpace, Twitter and blog pages. It isn’t as easy on LinkedIn and Facebook where they want your real identity and have safeguards in place to prevent you from creating a second persona. Save those two sites for your business identity.
There are some Web services like ReputationDefender
and Defend My Name
that can help you do some censoring of the information that’s out there about you. It’s probably just as effective to google yourself from time to time, be aware of the issues and take preventative measures to maintain your digital footprint as an asset and not a liability.
Tags: "digital footprint", "job seeker", candidate, Facebook, Fast Company, flickr, LinkedIn, myspace, privacy, reunion.com, Twitter, wikipedia