I recently began looking for a new job. I haven't done this now for six years, and in the meantime I've been in the position of hiring manager many times. One of the first things I do after I decide a candidate is worth talking to is google them.
Now the ball is in the other court and I'm contemplating the forensics that exist on me out there.
My name is pretty unique. I have never turned up anyone else with my forename and surname through internet search. A plain old search on my name on google brings up my little-used website, with a defunct blog and a bunch of photos going back about 5 years, but little else.
Somewhat embarrassingly you also discover that I was hotwired's "geek of the week" some time in 1997. The link no longer works, but google has cached it for your enjoyment. By the third page of results I'm no longer appearing, and references to Gregor Mendel and Gregor Samsa start to abound. So at least I'm in good company.
Move over to the 'groups' search results and things start to get scary. This is like taking a drill sample of the earth's core, there are entries in there back to 1993, that's ancient history. "alt.cuddle" - wtf was I thinking? Mining the groups dataset builds a profile of an overly sensitive geek, who loves northern exposure and is (was) a vegetarian.
There's even one of those chain letters / pyramid scheme letters in there with my name it, and Paul's. How awful!
Posted by Gregor in Search Tech at March 30, 2006 01:09 AM
