Most hiring managers not just in the US but in other western and European countries search for candidates online, and nearly three fourth of them would reject or accept a candidate depending on what they come across in the respective search results, according to a past study courtesy Microsoft.
In essence, managing the online reputation is going to be a critical challenge for both individuals and businesses. It is quiet likely that your employer, your boss, a business contact and almost every one you hand out a business card to will check for your name and identity by typing out your name into search engines.
And by chance if some negative entries appear in the search results, your image is bound to suffer. Your online reputation, maligned by vested interests can also greatly affect your career and professional life.
What can invite an online reputation crisis?
This emerging trend has social implications, too. In many Middle Eastern countries such as Syria and Iran, activists have succeeded sometimes in identifying hapless victims of violence through YouTube videos that have been anonymously uploaded with no identity of the posters known to others. But they achieve what they have set out to do.
They have also been successful in identifying fakes as well: In an incident this month widely circulated by the media, a blogger, claiming to be a Syrian-American lesbian, termed herself ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’. The user was later revealed to be actually an American man. In this case, one Andy Carvin led the sleuthing was. A strategist for NPR, he has covered the protests in the Middle Easte on Twitter exhaustively.
And when sources of his revealed that they were becoming skeptical of the identity of the blogger, he started to ask questions on Facebook and Twitter. He recalled: “Do you know her at all? Have anyone of you met her in person? The more I asked, the lesser I learnt, since no one had actually met her, including the reporters who had claimed to interview her in person.”Along with his online followers, Mr. Carvin used photographs and server log data in order to link the blog posts to Mr. MacMaster’s wife.
The Internet is relentless, unforgiving
Analyzing the trend, the chief executive of Simulmedia, Dave Morgan, commented in an insightful essay this month that ‘Publicity’ – something usually associated with popular celebrities – ‘is not anymore scarce.” According to him, the Internet ‘cannot be made to simply forget’ comments, moments and images from the past, such as a ruckus caused on the street, a fleeting moment of love during a riot or an outburst on a train.
As a result, ‘the reality of an inescapable and inevitable public realm is certainly an issue that we shall all need to deal with – directly or indirectly- a lot more, from here on…
