Jul 25

Written by: Matthew Hile
7/25/2006 5:57 AM

Two articles have caught my attention this week relating to the information we place on the web about ourselves and its impact on our lives. 

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a new article (Volume 52, Issue 47, Page B6) about Juan R.I. Cole a professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history who was denied a job at Yale perhaps for his "strong opposition to the war in Iraq and to the treatment of the Palestinians" expressed in his blog, Informed Comment.

In Internetweek, Amy DeCarlo had an article which stated that "36 percent (of executive recruiters) have eliminated a candidate from consideration because of information they found online."

Is this new? No, people have always lost job offers based on what they have said and what others have said about them. What is new is that now we put a lot of information about our thoughts, opinions, and beliefs onto the internet, a very public space. Moreover, with sites like the wayback machine, even removing that information from the original site will not remove it from the web.

So what is the take home message? Be authentic - represent the real you in your online presence. Be ready to take the consequences of the real you because you will be judged by that presence. However, at least one advantage of this new state of affairs is that now the information being used is public and not supposition, rumor, and innuendo. With public information the decision making process is more transparent and we can see and understand how others see and understand us.

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