Best Way To Clear Your Name Online? 888
An anonymous reader writes "About fifteen years ago, I did something that I've come to regret on a university computer system. I was subsequently interviewed by a Federal law enforcement agency, although no charges were pressed and I have no criminal record as a result of my actions. At the time, I discussed the matter with a friend of mine who went on to mention it briefly in a text file zine with a small distribution list. I've generally tried to keep a low profile online and until recently there's been very little information about me available from the major search engines. Unfortunately, that zine mention was picked up by textfiles.com at some point and mirrored across the world. I've tried to address this with the owner of the site, but couldn't get anywhere. Even if my name in the source file is altered, cached copies will continue to link me with my youthful mistake. Have any other Slashdot readers had a similar experience? What practical steps would your readers recommend to prevent this information from hurting me? I am concerned that future employers may hold my past actions against me should they look for me online as part of their screening process."
Nothing you can do... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing you can do... (Score:5, Interesting)
Society needs to wake-up and realize punishing someone for what they did 20 years ago is ridiculous. Nobody is perfect. It's like what Harlan Ellison said on Sci-Fi Channel: "People accuse me of contradicting myself because 30 years ago I said this or that. And they're right. That's because 30 years ago I was young and stupid, and now I'm older and wiser and changed my mind. judge me on who I am today, now when I was some young brat."
IMHO just as thre's a 7-year stature of limitations on law, so too should employers have a limitation on how far back they can dig. Anything that predates this decade should be irrelevant.
Sorry for the typos - I'm typing on a mac.
I'm not usd to this keyboard'
Depends (Score:3, Interesting)
It has little or nothing to do with "society".
Did you rape and murder my sister while burglarizing her house 15 years ago?
If you did, and you get out of jail, I am going to cut your nuts off, first.
Re:Depends (Score:5, Funny)
Did you rape and murder my sister while burglarizing her house 15 years ago?
Isn't it interesting that you're the only one asking that question? Why hasn't he responded to your question yet? Perhaps he has something to hide.
Re:Depends (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps he has something to hide.
His nuts.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
IMHO just as thre's a 7-year stature of limitations on law, so too should employers have a limitation on how far back they can dig. Anything that predates this decade should be irrelevant.
Sorry for the typos - I'm typing on a mac.
I'm not usd to this keyboard'
You're using a mac? Well, good luck on getting hired by MS for the next 7 years.
Re:Nothing you can do... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any employer that chooses to judge an employee by good or bad stuff they did 10 years ago, is stark raving insane.
10 years ago, the person didn't have two children and a spouse and a house with a 30 year mortgage. That kind of change in life status changes people's priorities. 15 years ago she might have been a party animal, with photos on Facebook showing her drunken charades with a bunch of equally sillly friends, these days she might not even touch alcohol since her dedication to her children is more important to her.
People do change.
Re:Nothing you can do... (Score:4, Funny)
Especially going from youth to adulthood.
If we're going to hold things against people forever, then practically everyone is a bed wetting cookie thief with poor motor skills who has to be told when to go to bed.
Everyone learns life by trial and error. If we can't accept youthful error then nobody is acceptable. Error might as well be considered part of the very definition of youth.
Re:Nothing you can do... (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO just as thre's a 7-year stature of limitations on law, so too should employers have a limitation on how far back they can dig. Anything that predates this decade should be irrelevant.
So when a board of directors is reviewing the candidates for their new CEO, they should just ignore the fact that eight years ago one candidate drove his company into the ground and ran off with all its assets, while another has a spotless record? Face it, history matters. Actual reform and rehabilitation should be considered, but you don't get a free pass just because it's been a few years since your last incident. If you want to take a chance on a candidate with questionable history that's your prerogative, but others retain the right to take that history into account.
Moreover, all else being equal, a candidate with a known history of embarrassing (or criminal) behavior should expect to lose to a candidate with a clean record. I agree that society should be less sensitive to such things, but it is not unreasonable for employers to prefer candidates who have shown themselves to be conscious of their public image, and thus less likely to harm the company's reputation. If you want to be hired despite your history you must be prepared to justify the heightened risk they are taking by hiring you. (If society were less sensitive then this justification would be easier to make.)
Re:Nothing you can do... (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean you can't do what the PR agents do: generate higher-profile positive information. That makes it harder to encounter the negative stuff casually. It also changes the balance in the perception of the individual concerned if the negative stuff does also come to light.
Re:Nothing you can do... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You didn't read the summary. Someone else wrote his name in a low-circulation document that is now publicly indexable.
This stuff scares the crap out of me. If you live in a small town, ANY arrest will get you in the newspaper.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You didn't read the summary. Someone else wrote his name in a low-circulation document that is now publicly indexable.
There's no such thing as "low-circulation document" on the internet. If it's there, unless it's encrypted or locked down by strong access controls, it's marked "Distribution: World".
This stuff scares the crap out of me. If you live in a small town, ANY arrest will get you in the newspaper.
So don't get arrested. If you get arrested for something not actually wrong, you'll have a good posi
I Don't Worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I Don't Worry (Score:5, Informative)
If you consider something at "University" a Youth Mistake. Most people are generally at the age of adulthood since then.
While I agree, anyone who will hold that one and only thing against you would be a jerk, that doesn't mean it won't happen. But it will usually mean you wouldn't want to work with that person anyways. (In the tough economy though, most take whatever job they can find).
And if it's the ONLY thing available on him, it depends on what personally identifiable information is there. Does it include the University and his full name? Or just his first name and the University.
I can think of a handful of circumstances where he could simply say "No, that's not me" if the information isn't solid.
As a Pro Tip: Make a Facebook Account, spend 1 weekend on it putting a few non-embarassing pictures, Change your status to something positive, and never touch it again. It'll get picked up on Google and the images you're tagged in - blamo, that small thing is going to the bottom of the list.
Re:I Don't Worry (Score:4, Insightful)
If you consider something at "University" a Youth Mistake. Most people are generally at the age of adulthood since then.
If you think someone at University at a typical post-high school age is an "adult", then practical experience, cognitive science [washingtonpost.com], and auto insurer's actuarial statistics have something quite different to say. Even ignoring brain maturation issues, in today's society that's the time when most folks are away from home and on their own for the first time, and are really just starting to figure out Which End Is Up.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you consider something at "University" a Youth Mistake. Most people are generally at the age of adulthood since then.
I did some very stupid and immature stuff in college. Luckily none of it is evident on the Internet. I am a very different person now.
As a Pro Tip: Make a Facebook Account, spend 1 weekend on it putting a few non-embarassing pictures, Change your status to something positive, and never touch it again. It'll get picked up on Google and the images you're tagged in - blamo, that small thing is going to the bottom of the list.
Or create your own website with domain name matching your real life name, with at least your phone number and resume.
And post to technical mailing lists using your real name. All that stuff will probably come high on Google compared
to that zine. Stop keeping a low profile.
Not keeping low profile? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not keeping low profile? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not keeping low profile? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not keeping low profile? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not keeping low profile? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you mean 'ask politely', because I highly doubt a cease and desist would do much here beyond get you laughed at and provoke a lawyer to write a nice letter explaining the concept of the First Amendment to you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If no charges were ever brought and no criminal record is involved, I have to wonder whether the OP regrets the actions because they were of the "perceived to be wrong" kind rather than the "actually wrong" kind. In that case, yes, it does suck to be held responsible, particularly if word is getting around but you have no effective right to reply and set the record straight.
How common is your name? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're "John Smith", I think it will be pretty easy to disclaim being the SAME John Smith unless there are a lot of other matching details.
On the other hand, if your last name is "Szczerbiak", maybe you can make a case for wanting to simplify the spelling and change it.
Basically those are the first two options I can think of -- dodge, and go stand somewhere else.
Mal-2
Re:How common is your name? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a bit more to it.
Of course, deny, deny, deny is a wonderful thing. He has other options though.
1) He could bury it so deep in the searches that no one would ever stumble upon it. He could plaster his name across so many sites that he seems like a good upstanding citizen (and search engine spammer).
2) He could build a disinformation campaign. Build up identities with the same name but obviously different information. We'll assume his name is so unique there's only him to find. Now, with 100 profiles on sites and message boards with different ages, locations, and experiences (although all bogus) they'd have to wade through the crap to identify him.
3) Deny, deny, deny. It's still a good option. :) If a prospective employer comes across it, laugh about it. "Ya, I found my name, and saw what that other guy did. It's funny, but no it's not me."
4) Admit to the felony electronic trespass against the university that he was at, and not get the job. :) Ok, I'm just making an assumption on that one, but at some point, especially if there were federal charges, someone's going to track it back to him.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm "Philip Zack", and as it happens a person with the same name was caught on video removing anthrax from a military base. Anyone who attempts to learn about me by googling my name will find lots of references to this other guy. I have no idea whether any of the jobs I didn't get were lost because an employer tried to do a quick and dirty background check, and didn't bother to ask whether what they found was me or not. Fortunately, the TSA didn't use google when I last flew, or I would have had a lengthy d
Use it in the interview.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you ever consider taking what you did and using it as a reason they SHOULD hire you?
Re:Use it in the interview.. (Score:5, Insightful)
3 thoughts (Score:4, Informative)
1. Are you still friends with the writer of the zine? Ask them to send a DMCA notice. Don't know if it would work, but may be worth a shot.
2. Drown out the old stuff. Develop an online presence that will bury the old stuff into obscurity. Register your real name as your user ID on all the sites you post on. Downside: prospective employers, etc, will think you spend all day on those sites.
3. Change your name.
Sorry if this is of no help.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Are you still friends with the writer of the zine? Ask them to send a DMCA notice. Don't know if it would work, but may be worth a shot.
Could easily backfire through the Streisand Effect.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you still friends with the writer of the zine? Ask them to send a DMCA notice. Don't know if it would work, but may be worth a shot.
Or you could just send a DMCA notice yourself. You have no right to request a takedown, but that doesn't stop big media companies.
Live with it. (Score:4, Insightful)
On reflection... (Score:5, Funny)
smokescreen (Score:5, Insightful)
if it's result number 999 on google, i doubt your average employer will read that far into it, and if they do, the amount of positive things that have been said about you will probably outweigh the one negative result
and i'm not sure of US law in this manner, but is it legal to deny someone a job opportunity based on an alleged crime for which they were completely pardoned?
wtf kind of question is this? (Score:5, Informative)
Uhh, yes. There is no "right" to a job in the USA. You can be denied for ANY reason except race, religon, or sexual orientation and those are hard to prove.
Why in the world would you think any employer "must" hire someone? Are you kidding me? The USA is a hire and fire at-will country and always has been. It doesn't even make sense to consider whether an employer "must" hire someone they don't want to hire because any employer in their right mind would simply eliminate the position before they would hire someone who is forced upon them. This isn't France.
I kinda-sorta give you a pass because it appears you are Non-US. I'd only point out that this distinction is one major difference between the USA and the rest of the world. There is no right to a job in the USA at all.
The best thing you can do is post on /. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The best thing you can do is post on /. (Score:5, Funny)
And that’s not all. In five minutes he will have had a rape party with a dozen monkeys while wearing a Borat style “swimsuit”, stilettos and a huge assblaster in 2004. ^^
Go Buddhist (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no way you can track down all those bits and alter/destroy them. Regardless fo the legality, it is impossible from a legal perspective.
Go Buddhist, give up everything, change your name, (your SSN will stay, IIRC) and reinvent yourself. Seems to me to be a lot for a stupid text file. As someone who would work at a summer camp, I would disappear 3 months out of the year to the world outside the camp. I'd come back fresh, refreshed and unencumbered. Live off the net for a while and see how really irrelevant it is to the Real World.
or just maybe remove all the link destinations?
Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
Just hack into the server hosting the offending item and... oh wait.
Well first... (Score:5, Funny)
First[1], you need to invent a time machine. Then you travel back in time and either convince your former self not to do it or you kill all the witnesses and destroy all the evidence.
[1] You can actually do it last, if you like. Or in the middle. Whenever. It is a time machine, after[2] all.
[2] Or before all. It is a time machine, after[3] all.
[3] Or before all. It is stack overflow near line 5. Bailing
White-out, that's the ticket (Score:4, Funny)
I bought a used street sweeper and modded it with an extra tank on the top. I fill that full of white-out that I made myself in bulk from a secret family recipe (what can I say, I come from a long line of screw-ups). Then whenever I put my online foot in my mouth, I run out and hop in my "Eraser" and head off for my ISP's local datacenter... I whitewash the whole place top to bottom, and problem solved.
I see the other end of this problem rather often (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a long-term Rocky Horror Picture Show cast member, and I run a web site [austinrocky.org] for our local cast in Austin. I've been running this web site for over a decade now.
Cast members are frequently very interested to see photographs of themselves performing in the show. And since it's Rocky Horror, they're usually wearing lingerie of some sort. At the time the photos are posted, they're invariably very excited about this. Especially because I take pride in my photography, and most people haven't seen photos of themselves prior to this that someone had actually put significant work into.
A few years later though, these same people have frequently quit the cast, possibly graduated from college, and moved on to other activities. They may decide they want to apply for jobs in education, as music minister of a church, etc. They do some vanity searching on Google and are shocked... shocked I tell you!... that the Rocky Horror cast web site is still online and kicking with what had been posted some years previously.
Now keep in mind this is a hobby web site that I do purely for the enjoyment of myself and other cast members. It's done in my spare time, and I've always paid for it out of pocket.
I'm sure I could honor requests to remove all of these photos, but I simply don't want to. It involves a lot of time and effort on my end, to accomplish something that's actively taking away from things I take pride in myself. I get probably a half dozen requests per year on average at this point all basically saying the same thing: "Take down my photos now! You're causing damage to my reputation!". At some point I just had to say to hell with them all and whip up a form letter response saying "Sorry, but I'm just not going to do anything about it".
Re:I see the other end of this problem rather ofte (Score:5, Insightful)
do you tell people before you put the pictures up that you can't be bothered to tweak a few pages every 2 months when it becomes desirable for the pictures to come down again?
Or set the site up so that none of the pictures stay up for more than 12 months? (If people want them, they can snaffle them while they're still up)
Or why not set up your robots.txt so that only the frontpage gets indexed?
If you put potentially damaging pictures of people up on your website, you need to be responsible enough beforehand to recognise that you will need to 'budget' more time later to take them down again. If you can't do that, don't put the pictures up.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit.
If they are in public then too bad. If they gave permission, either explicit or implicit, then too bad. If they where in a situation where it's to be expected by a reasonable person, then too bad.
Trying to hide or change history of ANY kind is a bad thing.
No one is under any obligation to change something just becasue someone doesn't like it. It's thinking like yours that holds things back.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That last paragraph reads like this:
I take pride in damaging people's reputations.
You're a prick, Shawn McHorse. I wouldn't hire you to mow my lawn. Eat that, google.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:you bet I've had similar concerns (Score:5, Funny)
I'd speak to your Doctor. I imagine you can get a prescription that will be covered by your insurance. Way easier than 'a friend of a friend' trying to find illegal ways of getting it under your name.
Deny it, enter rehab and become born again (Score:4, Funny)
And here's the payback coming to the Internet Gen (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, to everyone who knows me: This wasn't my story submission
OK, now that's out of the way, I suffer from a related, but not quite so bad situation: I'm pretty much the only Erik Trimble on the Internet (that's not true, but close enough). Google me, and 90% of the first 100 returns point to me, in some way or not (FYI - the MySpace page for "leathercladdemon" isn't me. Really.) There's nothing bad there, it's just that my life has evolved, and having absolutely all of it retained and searchable over the past 20 years allows people to draw incorrect assumptions about me.
This is all the privacy problems that the current young generations seem to be completely oblivious to, and that pundits like to ignore. People's perceptions of you matter, as much as we'd like to think otherwise. That doesn't mean it has to rule your life, but to think that such perceptions don't matter is foolish. The problem with retaining all this data out in the open is that it seriously harms the ability of people to change. And we want people to change. Lots of Very Bad Things happen to society if we forbid people (either legally, or de facto) from changing their paths in life. For just a minor example, look at what being convicted of anything does to one's entire life. It's not good to have complete personal transparency.
I don't have a solution. At least not a simple one. But it needs to understood by everyone that it IS a problem.
-Erik
Who ya going to call... (Score:5, Funny)
Join Scientology. Then claim the files were posted online as a falsified attack by somebody that disagrees with your religious beliefs. The web site will be shut down in no time.
Phillip.
Is the Submitter Jesse Hirsh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I found it by doing a search on google for "site:textfiles.com university computer system" and it came up as the first match
The Anarchives [textfiles.com]
In early march of 1995 I was arrested for "Unauthorized Use Of A Computer". (About 15 years ago)
I was being accused of breaking into the computer systems at the University Of Toronto for the purpose of publishing "Anarchist newsletters".
---------------
Doing a little bit more research shows that Jesse Hirsh is also a contributor to Slash Code:
http://www.slashcode.com/docs/AUTHORS [slashcode.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is the Submitter Jesse Hirsh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just look at all the talks he gives about the internet on this youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7taUhf_ROU [youtube.com]
He also has a very large web presence and searches on Google for him never yielded anything about him breaking into the computer system.
It was only with the critical piece of information about "textfiles.com" was I able to find anything on Google about his past.
For me, this is a little bit too convenient and highly suspicious based on the type of work he is involved with, especially as a tech commentator on the radio in Canada.
Own your Name (Score:3, Informative)
You can't control what other people post about you, but you can control what you put out there.
Hi, Everyone! (Score:3, Interesting)
Just wanted to mention how Slashdot never fails to disappoint.
For the record, textfiles.com has no ads. None. Going to it or not going to it doesn't affect my revenue/income particularly. I don't run that site for money.
But if you'd rather hear a much funnier story about the legal threats I get, please watch my video That Awesome Time I Was Sued for Two Billion Dollars [vimeo.com].
You are screwed! (Score:3, Funny)
Copy, delete, new, paste (Score:3, Funny)
Copy yourself to the clipboard and then delete yourself. Create a new record and then paste yourself from the clipboard and save. You'll then have a new primary key, and references to the old you will be orphaned, or maybe even delete themselves depending on how serious the engine is when it comes to referential integrity constraints.
Quickly.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Live With It (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen first-hand at two companies that he's got something to worry about. Not during the interview, but before. At my last two employers it was standard process to do a quick google/facebook check and discard any applicants showing anything remotely controversial as part of their public persona. When you get 500+ resumes for one position, you do everything you can to whittle that stack down BEFORE you start bringing people in for interviews.
I'm not saying I agree with any of it, just relaying my bit of anecdotal evidence.
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:4, Funny)
Yep, that bad ass hacks calculators! Do you know the turmail he could have caused! He should have been sent away for a very very long time!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How about telling the truth?
It probably happened a decade ago. Even if I did find it I am not so sure that I would put a lot of credence in an old BBS text file from that long ago.
If I was interviewing and had found that I might ask about it.
If I got the answer "Yes I had a little talk with my university about that and they let me off with a warning, boy did I learn from that!" I would probably mark it down as a positive.
If I got a No not me never did that and you started to sweat I would keep looking.
If it
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in all fairness, it wasn't one mistake, it was at least two. First, he screwed up. Then, after that had more or less blown over, he decided to brag about it.. I mean "mentioned it to a friend who published the details of the exploit using real names". Congrats. You're notorious now. You have your street cred.
If you're REALLY concerned, take comfort in the fact that you are not the only one to ever screw up, and with luck and a long period of time without a history of further screwups, past indiscretions will be all but forgotten.
However, as I see it, you have three options. Either forget about it and hope nobody finds out, embrace it as a life lesson and show how you used the fallout from that event to learn to better take responsibility for your actions.... Or bury it. Publish a huge volume of information to the internet using your real name so eventually anyone searching for you will only find the good stuff and hopefully will get bored before they find that one blemish.
-Restil
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Publish a huge volume of information to the internet using your real name so eventually anyone searching for you will only find the good stuff and hopefully will get bored before they find that one blemish.
THAT's why I go for +5 insightful
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:welleee (Score:5, Funny)
Then you'll want to unplug the phone line from your modem. That way nobody can access your internet. Problem solved!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy did some stuff in his past that got him checked out by the feds, and people found out about it. It's up to potential employers to decide whether or not that is relevant to them. I may agree that the past should often just be left as the past, but I don't think that means everyone else has to share my opinion, or be denied the opportunity to form their own. (which is essentially what the OP wants)
Re:welleee (Score:4, Informative)
Only if race, religion, national origin, and (depending on your locale) sexual orientation are part of that opinion.
Thinking of him as a low-life dirtbag who killed animals for his personal jollies and then not hiring him based on that is still perfectly legal.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Everyone who breaks from the status quo should be punished by everyone with an axe to grind in perpetuity forever and ever.
We have enough "innocent" people that we don't need those "guilty" people to help us.</sarcasm>
Re:welleee (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone who tells you that life is fair is an idiot. "Should" has very little to do with what people actually do. And if you think you can change that, you're deluding yourself.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree.
Once you've matured you can face yourself, ultimately even laugh at yourself. Is it funny, what that stupid kid did?
Any prospective employer will appreciate the explanation that you gave us.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Any prospective employer will appreciate the explanation that you gave us.
That's supposed to be sarcasm, right?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As I said in another post, it depends.
Was it a childhood prank gone bad, resulting in some property damage? Was it a clever exploitation of some loophole? That might be a demonstration of initiative, motivation, and creativity. OTOH, he got caught. Does that demonstrate a lack of forethought and an inability to plan ahead?
Was it a drive-by shooting with three people injured or killed? That's different.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Funny)
No, just explain and they will typically understand. For example, my minor youporn issue was ignored by my current employer once I demonstrated that the whole goat thing was a result of misleading camera angles.
Re:welleee (Score:4, Funny)
More seriously: make sure you're okay with yourself if you do decide to appear on certain guitar in the shower websites. You never know which xkcd reading coworkers will say "hey, didn't you appear on..." and be correct.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Interesting)
But the poster has not matured. We know this because this mental child asks the question "How do I hide the shit I have done?".
That's quite a leap you just made there, judging a guy's mental state from one paragraph. It is not necessarily "immature" to wish to stop being punished. Heck, my Mom still holds a grudge against me for absent-mindedly leaving three 1/2 gallons of ice cream on the counter to melt -- 25 years ago. Am I immature for wishing she'd let that go? Am I still unable to properly store perishable foodstuffs? I assume you know. But this guy's case is quite different, you say? Please, share the details.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Be a man and take responsibility for your actions.
Employers turn down applicants because of photos showing the applicant drinking beer in college. He was interviewed by law enforcement and no charges were filed according to the summary. It sounds like he did take responsibility already. Being denied employment for something trivial isn't "taking responsibility for one's actions," it's being screwed over.
At some point employers are going to realize they're hiring -people- and that all of their employees have had lapses in judgement, and maybe then they'll have reasonable standards. For now though, many seem to think that if their lapses in judgment haven't made it onto the internet, that means they didn't happen, so they should only hire people with absolutely no dirt on their online profile.
Not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. We're in a bad economy right now, and as such employers are extremely picky. It won't always be that way. It just happens to be that way at the moment.
Those with some years on us realize that it'll get better and past actions won't matter so much.
And just maybe this person has learned to moderate his/her online behavi
Re:Not really. (Score:5, Interesting)
In most years, if an employer turned me down for something like that, I'd laugh it off. I get leads all the time. Then again...
The most common thread I've observed as a long term consultant is that every company out there thinks that their team needs to be "extremely elite" because their product is "extremely important" and therefore their employees need to be "perfect". Every team I've worked with seems to beat their chests with that stuff, mainly because they're so out of touch with the rest of the industry that they don't realize that their little b2b app is run of the mill, that their development team isn't any more skilled than the last team you worked with, and that their management isn't any smarter and their work environment isn't any better than anyone else. When there's a down economy, every company out there thinks they're the best because so many people apply for jobs with them.
My advice to anyone who's turned down for a job in general is to ask as many questions as you can about WHY you were turned down. They'll usually be hesitant to give you any info about it, but they're technically supposed to give you at least a general reason. If you at least know why you're not getting work, you can take that and go after someone who's got something on you up on the net. Asking politely doesn't work, you've got to have your lawyer call that guy to make something like that happen. Asking those questions saved my career...I was beating my head against the wall a couple years back trying to get a job, only to find out that one of my references who told me he would give me a reference, wasn't actually allowed to give them out. I asked every recruiter I had contacted until I found out which reference was screwing me out of work.
Re:Not really. (Score:5, Informative)
I was beating my head against the wall a couple years back trying to get a job, only to find out that one of my references who told me he would give me a reference, wasn't actually allowed to give them out. I asked every recruiter I had contacted until I found out which reference was screwing me out of work.
Or you can just have a buddy call your references and let you know what they said. That's what I do.
Re:Not really. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't ask why you didn't get the job, as that will make the other person defensive. People usually clam up when they feel threatened in some way. Ask for recommendations as to what you could do better as you continue your job search. Most people like to help, especially when someone comes to them for advice or expertise. You'd be amazed at how much more information you get using this approach, even though you are essentially asking the same question.
Re:welleee (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe the unspoken criterion for hiring is "smart enough to not get caught". If you need dirty deeds done dirt cheap, you need people who won't get busted and implicate you in the process.
Certainly, you don't need someone who treats a member of the 4th Estate as a personal confessor. (Yes, if you knew you were discussing your shady past with an internet publisher*, you shouldn't be the tiniest bit surprised that it got out there for anyone who can use Google to find.)
*Yes, an editor for a "a text file zine with a small distribution list" is an internet publisher. Deal with the new reality. Nothing is "small distribution" as long as scrapers, crawlers, and aggregators can find it.
Your Facebook page is not "private". Your blog post is not "private". Your memoir in a "text file zine with a small distribuiton list" is not "private".
"Private" means "we never talk about this with anyone who won't keep it quiet."
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Employers turn down applicants because of photos showing the applicant drinking beer in college.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to work for any place that turned me down because of some brief Google image search. That kind of shallow screening tells me all I need to know about them. "Unfortunate reality" be damned, I'm allowed to have a private life outside of work, thankyouverymuch.
At any rate, it sounds like this guy needs to smother this one little bad brief mention from years ago with a ton of really good, awesome stuff. What exactly are you doing now? Nothing? Is a law enforcement interview really the most exciting and noteworthy thing you've done in the last few years? If so, then maybe that should be on the first page of results when they Google your name.
Spread Disinformation (Score:5, Interesting)
Create multiple websites about you. In one, you were a beer-drinking guy who moved to the Barbados. Not you.
In another, you authored multiple books and magazine columns. Might be you.
A few more randomly generated ones and some near-look-alikes and you're done. They won't know what to believe. Oh and set a tracker on the websites, so you can see which ones your prospective employer visited (ID them by their IP)
Re:welleee (Score:4, Insightful)
"...you are presumed to be innocent."
In the eyes of the law, sure. Not in the eyes of other people, not if he ended up basically saying "Yeah, I did it." in print somewhere.
Re:welleee (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that others have taken it upon themselves to take responsibility for him. Or rather, not to take responsibility for him.
Bottom line, if an employer was willing to dismiss you based hearsay(which this effectively is), or even a verified incident in your past that resulted in no charges, then you are better off not working for that employer. Find yourself a job in a small to medium business without HR drones, where you can actually shake hands with the boss during the interview and even have an opportunity to bring up the incident if you feel it would concern them. Even at half the pay, it'll be twice the job. That's how you find employment.
If you're only sending by-the-numbers CVs to faceless companies, expect a by-the-numbers response.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Posting your embarassing stories on slashdot is certainly the best step to trying to hide it.
Be a man and take responsibility for your actions.
... and post an article on the web where you do take responsibility, then explain your current position on the issue in the same article.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Be a man and take responsibility for your actions.
That still won't get you the job though will it?
If you had two applicants for a job that were pretty much equal in all respects except that one had been interviewed by the feds for something untoward and one hadn't, which one would you hire? I'd certainly lean towards the one that never got caught for anything... even if he's just as devious, at least he's not dumb enough to get caught!
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I want the one that would get caught. I don't need someone stealing from me, I want to catch them. At the same time, I'm not going to force my employees to do something illegal, so their ability to break the law well doesn't help.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could just be honest and say that he had done some stupid things in the past but behaved well during the time he worked for you.
It's no more your job to crucify somebody as it is to defend them.
Re:welleee (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping in mind that a LOT of people did stupid things when they were younger and never got caught or had their name linked with what they did.
I find that the people who hold onto blame the longest are the same people who were the ones that "Didn't get caught" and they almost feel compelled to point the finger to move attention away from their own activities.
Anyway, sad to say but life's like that... Most people are bigoted to some extent and you can't change that... Move from job to job and prove your worth. Do the opposite to what you were linked with. Give people a reason to believe you've changed and use them as a reference.
GrpA.
Logical fallacy (Score:4, Informative)
If these people "Didn't get caught" how would you know of said activities?
"Didn't get caught" means that nobody in authority was able to pin blame on them for it. This doesn't mean that they didn't brag about it to anyone and everyone in their peer groups (or even outside of them). "Didn't get caught" and "everyone knows" aren't mutually exclusive.
Information Overload is your freind. (Score:5, Insightful)
As the response above suggests you can say "He did some stupid things in the past, but later he worked very well for me, and I think based on this that he is now a high quality person." Yada... Yadd..
Lay the facts on the table along with your opinion.
As for the original topic. The AC's mistake was keeping a low profile online. HR will be suspicious of anyone with no online identity at all. Especially for tech jobs. However. Let's say you apply for a Sysadmin position, and they search on your name. That search brings back a flood of discussions, forum posts and debates, most of them technology related. After the 1st few pages of boredom they will announce: "This guy is a geek and spends his online time in the company of geeks."
An ancient blog post about a criminal investigation would probably get lost in the torrent.
Re:Information Overload is your freind. (Score:4, Informative)
Following Forge's ideas are a bad idea IMO.
You should *not* say "he did some stupid things in the past" because that will open you up to a lawsuit if said person can ever track that comment back to you. It's way too vague, and probably none of their business. Screening candidates accurately isn't your job, it's theirs.
The safest things to say to an HR cold call regarding an applicant are either glowing recommendations or "Sorry, but I have no feedback to offer on the person you're asking about."
Re:Information Overload is your freind. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was ~16 I Googled my name, and the top result was a guide to different kinds of cannabis, drug equipment etc. The second result was an Amazon recommendation list for the same. The third was an online petition to legalise weed.
None of these were me, it's some American guy with the same name.
I set up my own website, and posted on some technical mailing lists about a year later. Soon after that, and the drug guy's links are several pages along in the Google hits.
Re:Information Overload is your freind. (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
?? Tmothy posted something from an anonymous reader. He isn't the person asking the question