Be careful about what you post online. Your employer may be watching  :-

……..Click & see->
Some employers are searching the Internet, either on their own or with the help of recruitment agencies, to see if they can catch a glimpse of you beyond your sterling résumé or fabulous interview performance. If the two pictures don’t match, that internship or job you’ve been pursuing — or are already in — could potentially vanish.

A chemical engineering student at a university in the US was eliminated from consideration for a job opening after a company recruiter Googled his name, discovering, among other things, that he liked to blow things up.

A student at a school in southeastern US was being courted by a small business owner for a key position — that was until the owner saw the student’s Facebook profile, which featured explicit photos and stories about the student’s drinking and pot smoking.

A recent graduate of a small upper Midwest university was only a few weeks into her first postgraduation job when the boss called her into his office. He had discovered the young woman’s personal blog, where she had been writing in detail about how miserable she was in her new position. She soon became a former employee.

If stories like these have a faraway, it-happened-to-my-sister’s-best-friend’s-cousin feel to them — the kind of vibe that makes you sceptical — you’re not alone, according to Jill Wesley, a former Purdue University career counsellor who recently became director of career services distance education at Indiana Business College.

“Although some employers are checking profiles, it takes a lot of time and is dull work,” Wesley says. Moreover, “there are also some legal grey areas, and I don’t think any employer wants to be the test case for them”.

Still, Wesley stresses, it’s critical for you to remember that with few exceptions, whatever you put on the Internet is public — and very often available indefinitely. So you need to make sure your online presence is working for you, not against you. Here’s how.

Self audit
Wesley and former Purdue colleague Kimberly Shea created a “personal Internet presence jobseeker self-audit”. It’s a handy checklist you can use to see how you might be perceived in your online pursuits.

Google yourself
Use the popular search engine to look up your name. You may want to try a few other search engines too, like Yahoo! and AltaVista. Does anything potentially damaging turn up? If so, consider contacting the site where you found the information and ask to have it removed.

Content inventory
Have you written about any topic or experience that might give a prospective or current employer pause? When you’re done, your overall online presence should pass the “would you be comfortable if your grandmother saw this?” test, says Wesley. Grandma may never really look you up online, but an employer certainly might.

Source: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)