You are Your Own Worst Enemy

Stephanie Ann Tulloch

I am going to make a point. I took the above picture from my daugher's facebook. This is how easy it is to take personal information from Face Book. For you people who don't understand what I am getting at, what if I take your personal pictures and videos of your party with you acting a fool? What if I use that to evaluate if I want to hire you for a good paying job? A good recruiter like Stephanie Ann Tulloch will look at your personal information on Facebook and other sites and make an evaluation of you for a job. You parents, I would have your children read this blog because this is what this blog is all about!

Stephanie on right and her husband Damine Tulloch on left at a corporate dinner party.

In many countries, we have government agencies that spy on average citizens. They keep records of what they do and what they say. In some places, what you say can get you killed. In America, we have freedom of speech but we also have the freedom to do something to you if we do not like what you do or say.

In My Day

I am very happy that I am at the end of my working career. When I started working in 1970, people walked into an office with their “typed” resume in their hand, wearing their best suit, and start selling themselves. If you sound like you knew what you were talking about, you usually got the job. In my youth we had more jobs than people, so getting the best job was nowhere near as hard as it is today. Your background check when they did one was usually a call to a neighbor, minister, or friend. Past employers usually did not say anything bad about you on fear of a law suit.

But Today

Today things have changed. In America, people spy on people and you are your own worst enemy. Many people are not working in this country because of what they did or said, not because they are not qualified. We have computer systems that gather information on average citizens. We gather it when we are stopped for traffic violations and when we pay income, property, and school taxes. Companies and government agencies gather information that includes our DNA. Even our cell phones, cars, and home computers report personal information to a central data base. Your credit information is stored by the Credit Bureaus. In these times, a high amount of debt can stop you from getting many high security jobs.

Actions at 16 can hurt at age 36

But some of the young people who use these dating and friend sites like Face Book and Yangutu really are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to getting jobs in the future. They seem not to understand or care that what they say or post by video on the computer at age 16 is stored forever. When an experienced person tries to tell these ignorant people about the dangers of what they are doing, they act like the person trying to help them has the problem not them.

The New Interview

My daughter, Stephanie Tulloch over sees the human resource department for CREDO Technology Solutions. Many times she will interview someone for a high paying job over the phone. The job maybe to staff IT people in corporations anywhere in the world. After the interview, she goes to work. She pulls up the internet on her computer and investigates the person who she just talked to. Stephanie will check out all professional and education information. She will look at records that originated from the FBI, court houses, State Police Agencies in just about all 50 states, Interpol records, vital statistics, and etc.

Then she will type in the name of the interviewee in the web-browser and see what comes up. Last, she goes into places like Facebook, Yangutu, and Tag. Then she rates her candidates by qualifications, background checks, and what she found out on the personal web-sites. One person who could have landed a $125 per hour job was rejected because of multiple DUIs in different states. Another was excused because of the things they said on their personal website.

When she makes her picks on who will get these high paying jobs, she has documentation on her candidates and she can prove why she made the choices that she made. Most people do not challenge her because if they take her to court, their personal trash will be out in the public for the people to see.

In my day we called it “Putting your business out in the street.”

With the economy the way it is, (The First Great Depression of the 21st Century) businesses are starting to do the same type of investigations for people looking for $9.00 per hour jobs.

The moral of this story is, keep your personal complaints about people, party pictures, and stories off the computer. You have a hard enough time landing that future job without your personal information holding you back.

When you press “Enter” on that key board remember that information will be in someone’s database forever, even after your death.

Contact information for:

Stephanie Tulloch, MBA
Resource Manager
Credo Technology Solutions
110 Sunset Ave.
Harrisburg, PA 17112
Office: 717-657-7017
Fax: 717-657-1439
http://www.credotechsolutions.com/

Connect with her on LinkedIn