More On Recruiting
After my blog post yesterday in reference to the recruiting article in the Roanoke Times, an employee sent me the following email:
This confuses me a little bit. It almost seems like this “check everything you have out there and judge you by it” stuff doesn’t really match our actual attitude. If you take 50% of the people that work here now and are great employees, and look at what they have on the Internet, they probably wouldn’t get hired by the standard mentioned in that article.
I think it’s a great point. In fact, I love it. Here was my response:
You bring up a good point.
But… I think it all depends on the judge. The reality is, most recruiters are going to look around to find out as much about you as they can. It’s what they do with the info that [hopefully] sets us apart.
If I were giving advice to someone looking for a job, I would urge them to make sure their online profiles (websites, myspace pages, etc.) are professional (or at least aren’t extremely unprofessional). Just like I would urge them to dress professionally for an interview (even though most people at our company wear t-shirts, jeans, and sandals). First impressions do matter. People will judge you even if its not company policy. And while we may not care about a lot of things that don’t matter, most companies unfortunately do.
Note to employees: please make sure your online reflection doesn’t represent you in a negative way. The last thing we need is another HR policy to follow. 
