Could an Employer be Reading This?
On the front page of the Boston Globe this morning, Diane Lewis illuminates a new hiring trend: employers declining to hire candidates after perusing their personal Weblogs. Apparently, after reading self-indulgent and even hostile content on these so-called ìblogsî, employers deem the candidate in question immature, unprofessional, and not worthy of employment.
I for one am appalled... at the carelessness of these obviously inferior job applicants for publishing such personality-blighting information on the internet! As you know, dear reader, I have always portrayed myself as I would wish any potential employer to see me: cheerful, of sound analytic mind, self-confident, and willing to take on new challenges. Of course, this has never been difficult for me. These are natural qualities I have always possessed, and I make use of them enthusiastically on every job, and even outside the office to promote the financial success of my employer. Anyone would easily conclude upon a systematic review of this blog, the validity of my positive attributes. Although, I might add, as such a review would be time consuming and occupy valuable company bandwidth, I would not recommend such a needless activity.
I have always viewed internet publishing as a thoughtful vehicle for the intellectually elite. Those of us who are simply not challenged sufficiently by managing complex multi-store productivity audits at the same time as maintaining a 3.9 GPA at an elite Boston graduate school, we who long for greater job-related responsibility, find ourselves going to the computer late into the evening (or early in the morning before a daily 5-mile run) to expound on the merits of various political developments and sociological trends. I myself recall fondly after a good read of Economic Theory and Practice by Patrick J. Welch, running to the computer to share with my loyal readership new insights on the monopolizing affects of government subsidies on native agrarian cultures.
Of course, a Weblog can also be used for the therapeutic process of analyzing emotional phenomena, and never has this been more clear than here in these pages. I have often documented my frustrations with my current employer, I being the soul team player to contribute value to the bottom line, gladly working longer hours and more diligently than average. I have fumed that my colleagues just donít CARE about managing dynamic systems! And while certain readers might view these temporary slips of emotion inconvenient, I conclude that I have portrayed myself honestly, and I have no reason to believe that an employer reading a posting such as this one would consider such frivolous musings a serious contraindication to my membership in their firm.
In conclusion, inferior job candidates who clearly demonstrate their negative qualities on ìblogsî should have reason to fear employer discovery. Those of us endowed with more intellectual capacity and emotionally stability, however, will calmly keep above the fray, and be offered jobs with compensation equal to our high level of skill and economic value. Of this I am sure.