6 Degrees of Separation…. Or is it more like one click away?
I love Google. In fact, rarely does a day go by that I don’t search for something. In today’s digital world almost anything you want to find (no matter how obscure) can be found on Google.
In fact, I even use it to research people. And I don’t mean celebrities or other notables, I mean everyday folk. And you know what? I’m not alone. More and more people are turning to search engines like Google to research the people they encounter in their professional and personal lives. You can blame it on our voyeuristic tendencies, our Reality TV society, or maybe on the fact that it’s just really easy to do in this connected world in which we live.
In my past life as a recruiter, I often turned to the search engines as a tool to help identify people for the jobs I was working to fill. I also would use it to learn more about the candidates I was introducing to my clients. This type of searching helped to validate information found on a resume, identified topics of conversation for an interview and sometimes even provided insight into one’s personal life.
Run a quick search on my name on Google and you’ll learn quite a bit about me in just the first few pages. Not only will you learn more about PennEnergyJOBS from the press releases that I issued, but you’ll also learn that I was the proprietor of another jobsite, that I owned a recruitment firm in New York City and also that there is another person (a woman) by the same name living in the Washington DC area who practices tax law.
This brings up an excellent point. Before casting judgment on someone because of information you find on the Internet, be sure that you are scrutinizing the right person.
Caution to the wise: Know what information lurks out there about you, and do your best to control it so that it portrays a positive public image. The last thing you want is to lose out on a job opportunity or a promotion because of something negative or controversial that was discovered about you on the net.
Searching Tips:
1. Use quotes around the name you are searching (example: “John Doe”)
2. Try localizing the search by adding a geographic location to the search (example: “John Doe” Philadelphia)
3. Try being more specific by adding relevant keywords to the search such as past or current employer names.
In the ocean of Internet searching, the waves roll high and the water runs deep.
Give it a try…. Google someone today!
