I love Scrabble and because I have very little time to spend over a board waiting silently while someone takes their turn muttering under their breath and referring to a dictionary made of paper. So I instead play online whenever I can find a friend to play.
My Literati pal lost interest so I haven’t played in quite some time. Another English major friend of mine told me Facebook has an online game, Scrabulous. This means registering for a social networking site so I can play a few games while writing a paper, watching a movie and eating popcorn in all my multi-tasking glory. All hail the Alt+Tab function!
Like other popular social sites, it asks that I set up a profile. It asks for a picture, birth date, where I live, work and go to school. Before entering anything I know I must make a decision. See, I’ve seen the profiles of others who feel comfortable putting every part of their lives online for their friends to see. After all, who but their friends will care enough to read it? It is a great way for friends to stay in touch and involved in each others lives for those without the time or interest in telling the same car accident or speeding ticket story to every friend and family member who might like to know. It is fun to share photos and videos and leave comments and find old friends.
However, there is another side to these sites and it is something of particular importance for me, and anyone else who is about to graduate and seek fame or fortune in their chosen field. You see, the fact is, we are not the only ones who seize the power of the internet to improve our lives. Employers seeking candidates too have the Google-Fu. Anonymity is a myth. They will Google your name and if you have completed the profile, your phone may not ring.
You must take care and make decisions about what you will or will not reveal. Potential employers want to be sure they are interviewing the best possible candidates and they know that we all put our best foot forward when searching for a job. Your resume may be polished but an internet search of your name might reveal it is all just so much white-wash.
How likely is that HR person to want to meet you if they find your online profiles and read about last weekend’s drunken orgy where you threw up on your best friend and your sister bailed you out the next day? Do you really want them to read your rant about getting D’s on exams or not going to class because you stayed up all night beating up your roommate’s WoW guild? They certainly do not want to see the bared and lettered asses of you and your friends misspelling the name of your college sports team.
Think you can put things like that on your profile or blog and be safe so long as you take it down before the resumes are sent? Well, the truth is that just because you took the spicier tidbits of your life offline, does not mean they are GONE. That’s right, the internet is being archived. Think of it like Microsoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express. Deleting something does not mean it is gone.
If you really must socialize on these kinds of sites and fill out the profile according to what might get you the most dates, I have a few suggestions.
1. Get another email address. One you will use only for social networking sites or only for professional contacts. Do not use them interchangeably. And no, “crazybabe69@email.net” is not an acceptable address to give out on your resume.
2. Come up with an online identity. Do not associate your real name with this identity. Call yourself “The Wizard” or “Hot Girl” or “NASCAR fan” or whatever it is that means something to you. Use this for your screen names, your profiles and anywhere else you might reveal more about yourself than you want the Pope to know. Give this name to all your peers, but not to anyone who might help you find work.
Yes, yes, I know you’re very clever and I almost hate to break it to you but, there is always someone out there with stronger Google-Fu than even yours.
When you are searching for a job, watching the calendar and the impending school loan repayment start date, do you want the thing that stands in your way to be you? Do you want potential employers looking at a picture you dressed in clothes made entirely from potato peels and electrical tape and taking body shots off a stranger?
2 comments:
That was a good story about your laptop. Keeping it on until the semester ended must have been a challenge. Beeping sounds when your laptop powers on probably indicate some type of memory error (wrong type of RAM, damaged DIMM slots, etc.).
Well, they supposedly replaced the motherboard the last time... I would hate to think it's gotta be replaced again already.
I hate to send it away... I admit, I've become emotionally attached to the thing. It's not like I don't have a perfectly great desktop to use.
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