Tech-savvy employers are catching more people out

[Mellijelli]

Just a bit of advice to people going for interviews or who have been circulating their cvs.

Iv recently read that while few companies in Britain have an anti-fraud division, all employers have the internet at their disposal thats a given i suppose, nothing runs anymore with out a PC, so this means they have the power to do their own detective work via search engines and social networking sites.

According to a recent Career Builder study they found that 43% of companies research candidates online before hiring them. What you say (or others say about you) on these sites could influence their decision about taking you on. It could also expose your dishonesty. Around 38% of employers uncovered the truth about applicants’ credentials online, the survey found.

Discriminatory remarks, comments about drinking heavily, or inappropriate photographs on your Facebook page could also tarnish your credibility. If you’re serious about your contracting career, it’s worth cleaning up your online profiles, not too long ago i read an online blog where this girl was badly slandering her boss online, stupidly she forgot that he also used the blog and she was fired for it the next day lol.

Anyway if you can’t gain your potential employer’s trust, how can you expect to land the job or keep a job for that matter?

You know when you’ve gone too far where stretching the truth on your CV becomes a lie and it’s very difficult to isolate that instance. Perhaps the best way to go about it is to err on the side of honesty.

If you feel that you’re misrepresenting your skills, achievements and expertise in any way, stop and think about the consequences.

Will you be out of your depth if you do get the job? Will you let your boss and co-workers down? Or even worse: could you end up being accused of employment fraud? Your conscience will guide you as to what you should do next.

Think about these things before you do anything job related please.

[Shizara]

That's very sound advice. There are many aspects in your post that people need to consider and you have summed them up well. Just think how easy it is for us to research information on the internet which is a vast, electronic library of data. Most people are more than able to dig up information on all manner of subjects, so, realistically it should be a piece of cake for potential employers to do so.

Another thought that comes to mind is the use of mobile phone text. When mobile phones first came out the number of characters in a message were limited and so people used them sparingly by reducing the characters in a word such as u for you. This enabled the sending of more information in a message however, over time it extended into other activities that required the use of text. What does that say about us as people? Does it imply that we are able to move with the times amd adapt accordingly? Has the use of such text become acceptable in schools, therefore putting an official stamp on its use? Or is it a further lowering of standards?

[Mellijelli]

Shizara i dont think there is anything these days that does not rely on some kind of technology or other, be it phones, pcs or whatever else, in a way its added to the ease in which we do everything, making work and time more manageable and efficient, on the other hand quality of life has deeply been set aside by everything being so unpersonalized, there is for me too much access to anything in general for our younger generation, they are way too advanced at a very young age, and innocence is becoming far and few between in the process of it all, its a quite depressing dont you think?