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Keep Your E-Image Clean

Some employers are searching the Internet to see if they can catch a glimpse of you beyond your sterling resume or fabulous interview performance. If the two pictures don’t match, that internship or job you’ve been pursuing, or are already in, could potentially vanish. To wit:

•A chemical engineering student at a university in the Northeast was eliminated from consideration for a job opening after a company recruiter Googled the student’s name, discovering, among other things, that he liked to blow things up.

•A student at a school in the Southeastern US was being courted by a small business owner for a key position – that was until the owner saw the student’s Facebook profile, which featured explicit photos and stories about the student’s drinking and pot smoking.

•A recent graduate of a small upper Midwest university was only a few weeks into her first postgraduation job when the boss called her into his office. He had discovered the young woman’s personal blog, where she had been writing in detail about how miserable she was in her new position. She soon became a former employee.

If stories like these have a faraway, it-happened-to-my-sister’s-best-friend’s-cousin feel to them, the kind of vibe that makes you skeptical, you’re not alone, according to Jill Wesley, a former Purdue University career counselor who recently became director of career services distance education at Indiana Business College.

“Although some employers are checking profiles, it takes a lot of time and is dull work,” Wesley says. Moreover, “there are also some legal gray areas, and I don’t think any employer wants to be the test case for them.”

Continued…

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