Were You Bad (Cool) or Good (Uncool) In College?

Random results for “Student Profile” search term found on MySpace or Facebook

How does your past behavior in college affect your job prospects relative to your online reputation? Let’s face it: the job market is very tough today and, typically, many, if not most, individuals change jobs more often in their careers than ever before. I have seen statistics that indicate it is not at all unusual to see today’s workers change employers six or more times in less than twenty years. Years ago the HR wonks and hiring executives would look at this in the interviewing process to determine whether or not this person was “unstable”, unable to even hold down a job, and dig deeper into their social lifestyle to perhaps discover some “problems”, real or imagined. I am probably guilty of having done this myself years ago with such a resume and candidate in front of me.

But wait! Speaking of “social lifestyle“, with the tools available today to that prospective employer not available as little as five years ago, “you better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, I’m telling you why: MySpace/Facebook has come to town.”

We have recently had the opportunity of working with some late Generation X-er’s and early Generation-Y’s who have been shut down on some recent job interviews or resume submissions. They were great candidates, clearly qualified for the positions they sought. After getting blown out, these individuals spent some time doing deep searches of their own names, and guess what? The search engine results surprised them, but you know what happened: yes, today, they are great parents, well educated employees, community participants, maybe struggling a bit with desire for more income or debt reduction, hence, seeking the new opportunities, but they were JERKS in college. Just STUPID. Wait! Let me take that back a little and restate it so I do not appear so harsh. They exercised very poor judgement for whatever the reason may have been. Often they just had a need to appear “cool” to their peers and in their immaturity — the major culprit— were not capable of foresight and how their actions and behavior could possibly affect their future.

Okay, granted, we have all done stupid things in college, but twenty plus years ago, if you told me I would be carrying a telephone in my pocket the size of a playing card cabable of world-wide calls and viewing almost all the known information in the world, I’m sure I would have dismissed you and urged you find a new hobby other than science-fiction. Hence, in today’s new paradigm, we must be cognizant of this public dissemination and adjust our behavior accordingly.

So, when those old offline college chronicles were published and distributed on campus, or in the community, who would have thought those publications would be archived and converted to digital format for page upload to the World Wide Web? What if the article was negative: you got suspended; caught in the wrong place at the wrong time; arrested? And, pow, even if it is a decade old, or more, there it is on page ONE of the major search engines as a search result for your name. Bye, bye new job. Want to compute what this damage to your online reputation may be costing you? Many thousands, and more, between now and your hoped for retirement, so I’m not going to do the math for you to see because it is very disheartening.

So some of these “cool” ex-collegiates seem to now be searching for something new: online reputation management. Of course, all the work we do, the clients with whom we work, and the techniques we use must be confidential, for obvious reasons. However, we just completed a campaign whereby in less than thirty (30) days we were successful in removing 1999 negative web pages for our client from Google (and other SE’s) and replace them with all positive, informative web sites, positive buzz, and total reputation repair. An online search for this individual today will reveal a highly desireable candidate for any employer. And you know what? The client really deserves only the best! A terrific knowledgeable person, a wonderful family, and deserving of a great future. Just made that one mistake so many years ago. Yeah, real “cool“, right?

The point of this message is that whether this sounds familar to you as an adult now part of the working population, an entrepreneur seemingly being held back from getting your deals done or business growing, OR a collegiate who happens to be reading this blog, take this conversation very seriously and think smartly about the content and/or images you are posting to your social media Web 2.0 sites. They will be there forever! Would you want your chidren or potential future employers to see this content five, ten or twenty years from now? Did you exercise good judgment, a critical trait for employers, even more keen if you are in a professional endeavor. Or how about if seeking a political position? (heh-heh)

The images at the top of this page were easily found and publicly available…I have no idea who these people are and certainly do not seek to draw attention to them, only the important issue under discussion. And these are mild pictures…imagine what the “private” posts contain. Beware: “private” posts may NOT be private, the content and images could remain on those servers forever, or saved by others, and when you least expect it, or even remember them, “whoops” there they are!

Oh, by the way, it wouldn’t hurt to use these same rules on YouTube.