What you post on the Internet might come back to haunt you when you go looking for a job. Some employers are searching the Web to see what is out there about you.
If you apply for a job at Firm Holdings in Shrewsbury, you should probably just assume that someone there is going to search the Web for your name or call up your posts on MySpace.com.
“It only takes five minutes to do,” said Robert Chiafullo, president of the real estate and financial investment company. “It gives you an idea of the guy that you are hiring.”
He did a search on one job candidate and up came a MySpace page with “explicit” content, he said. “I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t hire him because of that reason,” Chiafullo said.
Chiafullo is not alone. Employers are clicking on the Web to check out an applicant’s background, interests and accomplishments. Some also are using the Web to check a candidate’s claims. Did he or she really lead that project?
Nearly eight in 10 executive recruiters use search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, to check backgrounds online, according to a survey by ExecuNet Inc., an executive job search and recruiting company. Of those, 35 percent have eliminated a job candidate from consideration based on what they found, up from 26 percent a year ago.
“I think it’s very important to understand that a lot of this information people are going to see before they pick up the telephone, before you have the opportunity to explain what you were doing and why,” said Dave Opton, ExecuNet’s founder and chief executive officer. “They’re making that judgment absent any other information.”
In the information age, online postings can help shape the image that you present to the world around you. It includes not only your friends or some anonymous Web surfers, but also the company that you may hope will give you a paycheck later.
“A few minutes of misjudgment can lead to kind of a lifetime of explanation, if you will,” Opton said. “This stuff stays out there for a long, long time.”
Chiafullo hoped to fill a job for a property appraiser. “You want to make sure you are sending the right person to someone’s house,” he said. Of the candidate’s MySpace page, he said, “It didn’t portray the right thing.”
He said people can use their own discretion when posting online. “If you want to portray an image outside of work, my personal opinion is keep it to a lower profile,” he said.
Jeanne Achille, owner of The Devon Group, a Shrewsbury public relations and marketing firm, said she uses the Web to find out information about job candidates.
“It is just part of the puzzle,” Achille said. “We are a public-facing business, so it is very important that whoever we bring on board to work at the agency be very buttoned down and very aware of the perception that is created through their public persona.”
She has not found anything online that has led to a decision not to hire someone. But a Web search can yield interesting information.
“You find out things, (such as) that the person is a runner and they have run in competitive races,” Achille said. “That is valuable information about how ambitious they are and how results-oriented they are.”
So what’s a savvy, Internet citizen to do?
“You don’t say anything that you wouldn’t want your mother to see or that you would be embarrassed to see on the front page,” Opton said. “If you use that as a guideline, you’ll probably be OK.”
You also can try to mold your own image on the Internet, which may actually capture a hiring manager’s attention.
“You can demonstrate your ability to communicate effectively . . . by commenting on things that are relevant to that industry or to that company in blogs or articles that you may write,” Opton said.
William Hill, assistant dean of placement and student employment at Monmouth University, said that Web sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com will be discussed in career counseling sessions.
“One must keep in mind that public sites like MySpace and others are legitimately open to outsiders and could be used to form impressions, initial impressions,” Hill said.
So what happens if you remember that less-than-chivalrous post you made on the Internet? First, figure out how important it is.
“I am not sure that I would bring it up right out of the box,” Opton said. “But if I had enough experience under my belt to know that this was something that was getting in my way, then I think I might be more proactive about it.”
If it’s a serious issue, you can try to post a modified statement on the Web or try to get it taken down, he said. Or you can try to address it when an interviewer asks about past mistakes.
There are some employers who choose not to use the Internet to find information about an applicant. Frank Wyckoff, owner of Snelling Personnel Services in Eatontown, said he prefers to pay for background checks.
“There is too much confusion about the information you get back,” Wyckoff said of the Web. “It is still an undisciplined, uncontrolled environment.”
He said he sent a woman out for a job interview. The woman found that the employer had searched the Internet and found information that she considered personal: an online diary about an experience at a camp, which was meant for parents and friends.
“She said, “I was so upset,’ ” Wyckoff recalled. “That spooked her off the job.”