Microsoft conducts online reputation study

Microsoft recently commissioned a marketing firm named Cross-tab Marketing Services to conduct a survey about online information and how it can hurt you. If you happen to be looking for a job you might want to think about the information you have online. You might want to erase some of your online history.

How could this hurt the online game player that might be searching for a job? Games certainly are online and most of us reading this play them. Online games have forums and they keep data bases about everything. Perhaps we said something derogatory during the heat of battle? Perhaps we had a beef with an opponent and we called them out in a public forum. Could actions like this cause us not to be hired? I guess it can and this study proves it. Money can buy anything or anyone so all a company needs to do is open the pocketbook thus persuading a site to open their books. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

This survey is rather interesting because it states that 70 percent of the human resource and recruiting managers in the US and Europe questioned have rejected prospective job candidates for negative things that were found in cyber space. The survey goes on to say that 79 percent of the HR professionals admit to conducting online searches and that 85 percent believe a negative search result will cause them to reject a candidate.

What could possibly be considered a negative search result? According to the survey anything at all could be considered a reason for not getting hired. Perhaps the job candidate posted objectionable pictures from spring vacation on Facebook or some other social networking web site. Or maybe they are a member of a forum or online game and have said or written things the employer might think is objectionable. It could be anything.

The study took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. 1250 job recruiters and 1250 consumers were surveyed for this study. Seven percent of the consumers interviewed in the US said they believe online information had an impact on their job searches. In the U.K. only 9 percent thought online information would be able to hurt them so the results from different parts of the world are similar. People just don't believe it could happen.

To be honest I can't figure out how a company could obtain information such as this so I must be in the 93 percent that are totally unaware that this is going on. However I can believe that they would look for a candidates name on Facebook to see what is posted.

I'm currently involved in a job search so this concerns me. I guess I'm a bit old fashioned in that I prefer the days when things such as this didn't exist and we didn't have to worry about it. On the other hand I like being online and the reality of big brother further creeping into our everyday lives certainly is a possibility.

Why would Microsoft be involved in a study such as this? Microsoft isn't the bad guy this time around. They are simply taking part in an event called Data Privacy Day in Europe, which was held in the U.S., Canada, and 27 European countries. This study is their contribution. Thank you Microsoft for your concern about our privacy.

You can read the full study here. Cheers.