For several years now, we’ve been subjected to news media scare stories about how what you do online can stay online for a long time. Google never forgets. Those frat party pictures of you naked on the lawn might never disappear.
Here’s the new angle: Potential employers who can’t google you and find you might wonder how net savvy you are.
And it’s not just about technology, Bray says. “Most companies would rather have somebody who has demonstrated the propensity to contribute, and one [sign] of that is going out and getting involved, joining in the discussion.”
Still, says Nolan Bayliss, founder of Naymz, an online identity services provider in Chicago, “someone who has no information online might be perceived as not being as tech-savvy as someone else.”
My advice: Start a blog and use your real name.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. I’m intrigued to find out whether Google’s long memory will lead to an increase or decrease in corporatism.
Let me paint two possible scenarios :
i) Google never forgets so big companies have to accept that you got drunk as a kid. In this world all your childhood and indiscretions pile up on the web so what is the point in worrying about hiring ‘the naked drunk frat guy’. After all the HR guys past is there too. Politicians can laugh off youthful indiscretions in this understanding world.
ii) Paranoid hyperachievers become ever more branded. Young people become so worried about the effect their digital past will have on their future prospects that from a very young age they become (personal) brand aware. (There’s a Cory Docotoronow story on this). If we thought we had holier than thou politicians now, in 15 years time they’ll be worse.
I really hope that the hippy option no. 1 comes to pass, but I have an awful feeling it will be no.2.
Good comment, Tom. Thanks.
I like #1, too.
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