Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-01-19 06:05:59 - Graham Ellis
Writing a piece (elsewhere - I'm not just limited to "The Horse's Mouth") about job applications in the UK - and it struck me that in the high tech world that I inhabit, when we receive an interesting CV we have a habit of "Googling" the applicant. It's amazing what you can learn about the person behind the application sometimes, and gain a further insite as to how they may or may not fit into a team.
Suggestion - do yourself a favour if you're likely to be on the job market and check into your personal search engine presence. Some pages you can change straight away if they're not in keeping with the image you wish to present, other a bit less so. And you can really work on the positive, can't you?
Am I positive or negative about this? Primarily positive. As someone who has historically taken on a new team member from time to time, their on line presence gives me a rare insite as to whether they'll fit in with the team in the broader sense - it saves THEM finding themselves in the wrong job and it saves US having the wrong person. A real "win / win". You might argue whether it's politically correct to look at applicants outside their job skills - I don't know, but if you're going to argue that way, I'm going to worry as a potential employer that you'll lack flexibility as the job flexes, and I would have to consider carefully whether you would fit into a senior role at a small company, which is my experience area.
I'm happy with my private Google ranking. What can you learn from ...
There's one thing I should perhaps add here. We have a small and select team and we are NOT recruiting for the forseeable future. If you happen upon this Horse's Mouth please use the information as a thought-provoker, to help you better apply elsewhere to people who do have job openings.