College Admissions Officers Use Social Networks to Conduct Background Checks

September 23, 2008 at 11:25 am | In Personal Branding, Recruitment, Reputation Management, social media | 4 Comments

Yesterday, I blogged about how corporate recruiters are using social networks to conduct background checks. Today, I want to talk about how the same is true for high school students looking to enroll in colleges. When it comes to personal and professional development both of these posts are extremely important and mark periods in your life, when a single decision or opportunity can make you or break you.

There is a high-school graduating class nationwide of 3.3 million students. Colleges are expected to be sifting through a record number of applications this year. Personal branding is important for this crowd as well, especially for those wanting to gain acceptance from ivy league schools, such as Harvard University. If you don’t stand out or “make the grade,” you might have to settle and no one wants to do that. This is especially hard with parents that really put the pressure on. Today, I’m going to go over some brand new research on how high school students should be mindful of what they put on social networks, then give you a quick analysis and a few tips.

The research

Kaplan survey (Top 500 colleges)

Conclusion: Despite the sheer amount of applications colleges get, social networks are so accessible that they turn to them and uncover positive or negative information about applicants in an instant.

  • 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants
  • 38% said that what they saw “negatively affected” their views of the applicant
  • 25% of schools checking social networks said their views were improved
  • 21% of colleges used social-networking sites for recruiting prospects and gathering information about applicants.

Monster survey (3,400 college-bound students)

Conclusion: High school students are much more disciplined today than they were years ago. They recognize the competition to not only get into college, but what they will face when they graduate, so they are preparing early. The economy isn’t helping. :(

  • 86% plan to work this summer
  • 66% intend to work while in school (86% part-time)
  • 40% will begin their search before arriving on campus!
  • 87% anticipate having at least one internship during their college career

The admissions officers speak

“The school will do an Internet search, including Facebook and other sites, if an application raises “red flags,” such as a suspension from school.” – Thomas Griffin, director of undergraduate admissions at North Carolina State University in Raleigh

“The school hasn’t rejected any applicant because of information posted on the Internet. Princeton doesn’t have time to look at all applicants’ online information, but if an offensive Facebook post came to the college’s attention, the school would examine it.” – Janet Lavin Rapelye, dean of admission at Princeton University

“My staff is free to check out anonymous tips about social-networking sites or make use of the information if the admissions committee is evaluating a “tight” decision.” - Greg Roberts, senior associate dean of admission at the University of Virginia

“My feeling is that only in rare exceptions would we go and look at Facebook or MySpace because we have so much information to look at already when reviewing applications.” – Jacqueline Murphy, St. Michael’s College Admissions Director

The students speak

“There are some things I might think about getting rid of.” – Nicholas Santangelo, a senior at Seton Hall Prep

“I don’t do anything that bad, and if I did, I wouldn’t put it on the Internet.” – Jonathan Kahn, a 17-year-old

“I think that it’s definitely something that a lot of kids worry about — even for things like summer internships.” – Tess Russell, a 21-year-old junior at Middlebury College.

My thoughts

First off, how hard is it to Google someone’s name? What about search for their name on a social network? The accessibility and ease of search makes it obvious for admissions officers to use social networks as a background check for applicants. If you read between the lines and really think about this, I’d say that they are using it more for applicants that are “on the line” with being accepted or rejected or one’s that are in the “good pile.”

Why might you ask? Well, they don’t want to take a chance that some student gets accepted and misrepresents their (corporate) brand. Remember, when a company or school accepts you, they endorse your brand, meaning that you represent their corporate brand as an ambassador. When it comes to students “on the line,” it’s obvious that a social network may help some cross the line into the acceptance bin and others getting tossed in the trash.

Personal branding tips

  • Take a good look at your online presence and then a great big look at the college you are gunning for. If you find anything inappropriate, I want you to ask yourself “do I want to risk acceptance to the school of my dreams?”
  • Find a teacher you can trust and show them your Facebook page. Ask them to examine it and give you feedback.
  • Locate your school adviser and get guidance on what to include on your social networking page.
  • Try and take an internship in high school, as it will help differentiate you substantially when applying to schools and it’s great experience (I did one).

Corporate Recruiters Use Social Networks to Conduct Background Checks

September 22, 2008 at 11:01 am | In Personal Branding, Recruitment, Reputation Management, social media | 18 Comments

A lot has been on my mind this week, including a research report by Careerbuilder.com that just came out stating that “One-in-Five Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates.” In the UK, this number is “One-in-Four,” which is only 3% more. Everyone started blogging and writing about this report. When this press release first came out, I thought to myself “nice, this is more evidence for why people need to care about the existence of their personal brand on social networks.” Then I took my nightly run around my apartment complex and started to think hard about this. First, I will cite the key take-aways from this report and let you analyze it for yourself. Second, I will give you my thoughts. Third, I’ll give you a few tips.

The research

Major points

  • 22% of hiring managers use social networks to research profiles (+11% from 2006)
  • 34% of hiring managers dismissed a candidate based on what they found (out of the 22%)
  • 24% of hiring managers found information that was used to hire a candidate

Top 3 things that turned hiring managers away

  • 41% of candidates posted information about them drinking or using drugs
  • 40% of candidates posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
  • 29% of candidates had poor communication skills

Top 3 things that help candidates out

  • 48% of candidates background supported their qualifications for the job
  • 43% of candidates had great communication skills
  • 40% of candidates was a good fit for the company’s culture

My thoughts

First off, this research isn’t groundbreaking. I think everyone can assume that employers are viewing your profiles on social networks. The social network tends to be the destination after an employer Google’s your name. I’ve seen reports like this one in the past year or so and they all forget to break down the research by demographic. I want to know what age groups they are recruiting for when they did the survey. I’m looking for something like this: “75% of Gen-Y’ers lose opportunities based on their Facebook profile.” To me, when it comes to social media, demographic matters a lot. In the future, say 2 years from now, it won’t matter, but while it does, I want to know the split.

Secondly, even if the numbers were dimmed down, to 5%, it would still be a big deal. I say this because as long as any recruiter is using social networks to research candidates, then it matters! I believe more recruiters won’t admit they are going through this routine because their company doesn’t embrace social networking in the workplace. A lot of companies think that their employees use them to play games or get distracted.

Lastly, let’s quickly compare this survey to ExecuNet’s digital dirt survey of 2006. We can only assume from the Careerbuilder.com survey that it is a diverse audience (see my first point). ExecuNet is strickly executives, hence the name. The ExecuNet survey said 77% of executives are googled and 35% are eliminated based on what they find. It’s 2008 (almost 2009 now) and I bet that 77% is up to 90% and that 35% is up to 50%. Either way, the more a company is investing in human capital, the better the chances are that they will use Google/social networks to conduct background checks.

Personal branding tips

  • Be a content producer, not just a consumer, in order to be visible to recruiters.
  • Review your Google results on a regular basis, with a laser eye on the top 10 results for your name.
  • Pass this post onto your friends immediately or you aren’t a friend.
  • Use privacy options as much as you can on social networks and treat your profile, even if it’s private, as a public place.

The Fall of Privacy and the Rise of the Numerati

September 7, 2008 at 4:43 pm | In Book Reviews, Interview, People, Personal Branding, Reputation Management | Leave a Comment

I typically don’t blog on Sunday’s but this is an exception. Privacy is an important subject, especially when information is created about us everyday, sometimes without our consent. What happens when company’s learn so much about us that they call our every move? What happens when everything in the world is so public that there is no hiding? Well today I speak with Steven Baker, who is one of the beloved traditional journalists who loves social media. He wrote a piece in BusinessWeek after researching for it using Twitter (genius). His new book is called The Numerati and it takes a fascinating look at how mathematicians and other technical analysts are predicting our every move.

The Numerati is a very interesting book title and the cover is exceptional, relative to most books I read. Can you explain why your face is digitized and how that reflects the name of the book?

The idea is that the we produce loads of tiny details about our lives--what we buy, what we click online, where we go with our cell phones. These bits of data travel on networks, and if someone were to piece them together, in a sort of mosaic, we would each pop into view. The only people who can do this, who can find us in the rivers of data we produce, are the mathematicians, engineers and computer scientists that I call the Numerati. Since the book is about how they piece us together, from our data, and predict our behavior as shoppers, workers, patients, potential terrorists, etc., it seems appropriate to me that the face on the cover would be made up of tiny numbers.

What happens to all the data we produce on a daily basis? Where does it go and does it help improve our lives, invade our privacy or both?

The data we produce on a daily basis makes its way through networks into giant data centers. The biggest ones, run by companies such as Google and Microsoft, are known as “clouds.” You might be interested to know that they keep multiple copies of lots of data, including your correspondence on G-mail. Having multiple copies spread around the world speeds up the service and insures against data loss when servers crash–as they often do.

If you look at it broadly, the analysis of our data gives them a detailed picture of each one of us, and it permits them to provide us with customized service. Sometimes this will be welcome. Customized medicine and health care could dramatically improve our lives. Targeted media and advertising would mean that we’d see things we’re more likely to find interesting and relevant. Supermarkets that analyze our data could offer us bargains on the foods we actually want to eat. But there is plenty of room for abuse. Some of the customized service will feel creepy. Sometimes they’ll get it wrong. And some companies could use it to extract higher prices from us, or to deny us services (like health insurance)

How are you using the ideas behind your book to find the appropriate audience that would actually purchase the book?

My publisher, Houghton Mifflin, has launched a behavioral targeting campaign. It’s very similar to one I describe in the book. Over the next six weeks, the behavioral advertising division of AOL, Platform-A, will analyze the Web-surfing patterns of the people who click on Numerati ads, and they will try to build profiles of the most promising group of shoppers–and then hit them with about 7 million ads. This is not a big campaign. And the idea is to use it to gather insights about the market. I’ll be blogging about the process on TheNumerati.net. I should add that the Web surfers that are followed in this campaign are entirely anonymous. None of us know their names, genders, or addresses. They’re simply patterns of Web surfing.

Your book talks about how people are collecting data about us and trying to manipulate our lives. Can this be stopped? Do we have any control?

We have control. We can pay with cash, stop carrying cell phones, erase cookies on our computers, etc. But I think that a smarter path is to understand the risks and benefits, and to take advantage of these services prudently. There are lots of benefits, as I mentioned above.

What are a few ways the Numerati are retrieving our information and using it?

They’re harvesting our data in the work place. And at some companies, including IBM, they’re using this information to deploy the workers more efficiently. (An excerpt of the book detailing what IBM is up to ran as a cover on BusinessWeek at the end of August.) They’re also trying to model and predict us as shoppers. This fall, political Numerati will be placing us into new behavioral “tribes,” based on consumer and demographic data, to target us as promising potential supporters for John McCain or Barack Obama. And researchers at the National Security Agency are sifting through our data trying to find the potential terrorists among us.

Are you a Numerati? What makes someone a Numerati?

No, I’m not one of the Numerati. I’d say to be a member of that elite group, you have to make your living by analyzing data, one way or another.

What are the positives and negatives for having Numerati in our world?

I’d say it’s mostly positive. I’d say many of the advances in science and medicine in the next century will come through the analysis of our data. It’s a lot more efficient, for example, to do medical research with computerized data than to fiddle around with test tubes. That means the Numerati will be front and center. One of the sources in my book, a young computer scientist named Jack Einhorn, got my attention when he predicted: “The next Jonas Salk will be a mathematician, not a doctor.”

—-

Stephen L. Baker is the author of The Numerati and is a senior writer at BusinessWeek, covering technology. Previously he was a Paris correspondent. Baker joined BusinessWeek in March, 1987, as manager of the Mexico City bureau, where he was responsible for covering Mexico and Latin America. He was named Pittsburgh bureau manager in 1992.

Before BusinessWeek, Baker was a reporter for the El Paso Herald-Post. Prior to that, he was chief economic reporter for The Daily Journal in Caracas, Venezuela. Baker holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

How to React to Your Personal Brand Haters

August 29, 2008 at 11:29 am | In PR, Personal Branding, Reputation Management | 14 Comments

I’ve spoken about gaining visibility for your personal brand many times. When you have the spotlight on you, the “haters” come out to play.

When you stand for something, there are going to be people or groups that are against you. Every Hollywood celebrity has AT LEAST one person in this world who hates them. Unless you’re Gandhi, there’s a pretty safe bet that you won’t get along with everyone. I think it’s important for all of you to learn what to do when these “haters” come after you.

Yesterday, I had an incident where a group of people in a forum posted a total of 21 entries citing my name, picture, and a video. Their thoughts were all negative and very harsh. Aside from trying to rip apart my personal brand behind my back, they decided to post comments on my MODERATED blog 9 times in order to really dig into me. First, I’m going to show you what they said and then I’m going to go over what I did in response and what you can do if this should arise in your life.

Please note that I’m not upset or angry. I like to take punishment, so I can help protect all of you.

Some of the comments

  • “He is inspiring. He can make any blog a success (except apparently his own).”
  • “I’d hire him…as a dart board.”
  • “He does look cartoonish! He looks like one of those cartoon characters who wear glasses, and when they take them off, their eyes are really tiny and squinty. But he’s pretty cute for a squirrel getting hit by a car. BRAND ME SCHAWBEL!”
  • “Regardless of how smart his ideas are (for the record I won’t read any of them), this guy is a major douchebag.”
  • “This fella is quite sincere about all this, unless of course this is a joke of Andy Kaufman like magnitude. It’s a thought.”
  • “He’s in Boston, so he could just be exceptionally annoying.”

What I did

I did absolutely nothing about this situation (until I blogged about it today). This discussion board is locked down, so I couldn’t register as a user. Also, the conversation wasn’t based on fact; it was a bunch of immature opinions. To these people, it wasn’t about analyzing my brand. Instead they wanted to tear into my brand and spare no expense. If I weighted in, the situation would have gotten worse. The best move was to back-off and let the situation settle. Ignoring works!

Dan why aren’t you linking us to this forum post? Your Google results are so important. What Google says about you is how others will perceive you. I have 124,000 Google results for my name right now, so the chances of this forum gaining traction and placing in the top 10 is near impossible. If I were to link to it in this post, it might give the forum wings, and we certainly wouldn’t want that!

Your options

1) Do nothing and ignore. When you can’t post a comment or write an email to the haters, then just sit back and ignore it. If the site has low authority and credibility (such as the above forum), then Google will brush the incident under a carpet (it will always be there though).

2) Show them the facts. Any legit source, such as the NY Times or TechCrunch will revise their articles if they don’t get their facts straight. It’s part of good journalism and building a brand. Send the journalist an email citing the facts and ask them nicely to repost or revise the article.

3) Comment with your opinion. If the article allows comments (blogs, forums, traditional news sites), then feel free to comment. When you comment, you MUST reveal the real brand you and not make up a fictitious name. Trolls should stay under the drawbridge. They have no place “hanging out” on blogs.

4) Blog about it: After showing them the facts and commenting, they might still not budge. The next step, is to post about it in your own blog. Only do this if you have to. I blogged about this incident to show that bad publicity does happen and what to do about it.

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