Your Best Face Forward

A few years ago, not long after I started this blog (yes, a few YEARS.. where'd the time go?), Amy Joyce over at The Washington Post interviewed me about blogging.

As with all interviews, our 20 minutes spent on the phone was boiled down to a paragraph or two at the end of her column.

She used my comments to illustrate the positives of blogging, but most of her article was concentrated on employers disciplining staff members for their blogging content and potential employers not hiring people due to the content on their blog.

She pointed to a survey of 278 HR folks by the Society for Human Resource Management, 7% of whom said they read candidates' blogs to gather information on they decide to extend an offer.

This was 3 years ago, so you can imagine what that number is now.

A different survey last year in the UK revealed a full fifth of employers looked up candidates on-line, with over one half those saying it affected whether or not they hired the person based on their findings.

Now a coalition of UK children's charities is "seeking to ban employers from researching prospective employees on Facebook", according to PC Pro UK. The charities are hoping to convince the British government to tighten data protection laws so employers require permission to access on-line data.

Critics have pointed out that a blanket ban of accessing candidates' sites might hinder companies (like Aquent UK) from looking at a Designer or Art Director's work if it's on-line.

But the reasonable assumption is, if you're putting yourself out there for everyone to see, whether it's on Facebook, MySpace, Friendster...

Everyone might just see. I guess that's just as good a reason as any to get a good Avatar.