Vanity Searches

A few years ago I began hearing about employers googling names of people they thought about hiring. Doing so would often bring up embarrassing photos posted on the web, conversations about drug use, and more. An employer never needs to tell you that they did this nor do they have to tell you what they find. Trust me they find a lot of things.

When Darryl received his email about his interview it appeared that the recruiter emailed Darryl and another man using the same email. Big deal you say? Well let me tell you how big a deal it was. Darryl and this other person now both had the name of their competition for the job and their email address. With just a few simple keystrokes we could have found out so much about this man. He could do the same with Darryl. I almost felt it was a privacy violation.

Honestly I don't believe most people do vanity searches. I do. I teach my students to do that too. I tell them these are the things your future boss can find out about you. Still I think that most people either have no clue how easy a vanity search is or think that they wouldn't be able to find out anything out about the other person.

Google your name and you would be surprised what you see. You don't have to be Brittany Spears or Madonna to be found on the net. You can just be teechbiz and you could see my youtube videos, my posts on ols, as well as my myspace. I'm not worried. I'm almost fifty and nothing I'm really nervous about people seeing. Darryl doesn't put much out there about himself. Still you might be surprised what others have written about you. It's amazing.

I will be honest. If they had Google back when I was dating years ago I'd have googled every guy I ever dated. It might have opened my eyes to some problems.

Darryl's interview is on Monday. We spent the day running around looking for a suit for him to wear. We wound up buying him a pinstripe. We also bought him a new tie, a new shirt, and a new pair of shoe. I think he looked wonderful. He'll look very coordinated and put together.

We spent a good portion of the day rehearsing his interview. We tweaked his answers and rehearsed again. I think he'll do GREAT!!!!!!!

Keep us in your prayers.