This is a subject that Tamara and I have been talking about for a long time …
When we found out who Caleb’s possible teachers were going to be one of the first things that we did was to go home and “Google” the teachers names. We wanted to find out who they were, what they stood for, what they were involved with and of course, do we want this person teaching our child?
I can guarantee that we were not the only parent’s to do this, and I know that employers are doing the exact same thing with job applicants. Here is a good example of three job applicants, and three bad search results.
When we searched for Caleb’s potential teachers we found that one was heavily involved in their church, and the other one was involved in short term mission trips with her family. Both of which were very encouraging finds for us as parents.
But what if we had found a binge drinking party animal, or someone who was having a whinge about their students on a blog? I reckon we would have been walking into the school and requesting NOT to have that person as our kid’s teacher.
In the days of Facebook, MySpace, camera phones, blogs and an unrelenting desire for exhibitionism in some people I can guarantee that you are being searched for, and found.
What are people finding when they search your name?
Update:
Slashdot has a great ongoing discussion about this exact topic, and the ethics of searching for potential employees here.