Boring is Useless

There’s this idea that the minute employers start to review your job application, they do a google search on your name.  Your Facebook, Twitter, and Blog are all under scrutiny and if there’s anything degrading or embarrassing on those pages, your application might get tossed.  Perhaps this happens after you’re hired, and your boss gets interested.  Conventional wisdom says that we need to strip our profiles of anything personal so that we’re left with a shell of what our e-presence once was.  We’re left with something neutral and bland so that our employers (or potentials) can’t extrapolate anything.  They’re left with what they originally had – our offline presence, as we showed them in our interviews and resumes.  No pictures of beer pong in the dorms, or last Saturday night’s blackout.  No favorite bands like the Fuck Buttons.  No status updates.  Maybe you even shut down your Twitter account.

Huh?

Do you really want to associate yourself with something that lifeless?  Do companies want to hire a neutral, bland robot?  And if they do, is that the type of place a person like you wants to work, anyway?

I propose a new movement.  Instead of filtering out our content, provide more of it, but let’s make it really good.  Instead of worrying about our co-workers, bosses, and future employers stumbling across our Twitter accounts, let’s be ourselves, even if your content isn’t completely relevant to whatever job you’re doing/applying for.  Let’s make our e-presence a true representation of ourselves, because no one wants a phony.  And if you trick someone into hiring/working with a phony, how long can you keep up the act before the real you comes out?  Surprise.

I’m not suggesting that you post pictures of yourself as Frat King on top of Beer Pong Mountain.  I’m just saying that we know that our bosses, clients, and partners use the web, and that they might be searching for us.  Sure, we don’t want to embarrass ourselves, but it’s probably more embarrassing to have an e-presence which says you’re boring and lifeless.  We don’t want to hurt our chances by posting off-color YouTube clips, but how about the opportunity to help our chances?

If you’re given the opportunity to design your online brand, do you opt for tasteless, boring, or true?  Would you rather have the google search take 10 seconds when they find out there’s nothing new to learn?  Or would you rather have them drawn in to your strategically presented yet authentic world?  Who would they feel better hiring?  Seems obvious to me.

Stumble it!