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What makes people want to get myspace pages and post totally stupid pictures of themselves?
I don't want to hire a woman who thinks it is cute to feign picking her nose on her web page. Is that too "picky" of me?
And she seemed so straight-laced and dignified during the interviews. Weird.
[edited by: Lilliabeth at 7:34 pm (utc) on Mar. 22, 2007]
And who said a fake-picking-you're-nose picture isn't funny? Yuk yuk.
Now maybe I could start a myspace site showing im a Saint or something........
Prior to an interview, potential employees should start a myspace account, do their best to make it VERY findable. Then be sure to talk about how much they love working, how they are such a "workaholic", etc.
I'll have to remember that if I ever need to apply for a job. :)
I don't want to hire a woman who thinks it is cute to feign picking her nose on her web page.
how does this have anything to do with the job in question?
Is that too "picky"
Not at all, at least not in my opinion.
I don't want to hire a woman who thinks it is cute to feign picking her nose on her web page.
Well - if she would have really picked her nose - that would have been a good reason.
Is that too "picky"
hehehehehe love the sense of humor! love it!
how does this have anything to do with the job in question?
Great question.
This person will have a very large amount of face time with customers of a B2B. While a sense of humor is a good thing, I think the 8th-grade humor on her page was not a sign of good judgement for a 30 year old woman working in the corporate world.
If I were hiring a truck-driver, I wouldn't care. (But then her jello shots remarks might be a concern.)
This person will also be with me a great deal and I was not remotely amused by her page, especially the big nose-pick pic. It wasn't cute or funny. It was gross and dumb and boring and uninspired. And, really, really, really unlady-like.
Who knows? maybe she'd be a great fit for the job and my customers would love her and think me a genius for finding her.
We'll never know.
We'll never know.
That's too bad really. If someone were to judge me from my MySpace page I would never get hired.. not that I'm trying. The fact that I even have a MySpace page would probably raise eyebrows in some circles. But the space gives me a rare opportunity to display some of my quirkiness - those things that help to make me, well, me. On the other hand, what you will find on that page represents nothing about my corporate image or work ethic. (I actually had both at one time) It says nothing about the pride I take in my work, or the enthusiasm that I can have for a challenge.
Given the situation, I might have talked to her one more time to ask the one question: Do you know the difference between work and a beach party? A reply of no would be a signal to move on to the next applicant.
Hmm, here what comes?
I thought this topic would start a flamewar.
I think a lot of people are unaware of who may be looking at what they post on the Internet. It simply doesn't occur to them.
I don't think that makes them a particularly good or bad worker; in fact, I think the only thing you can glean from it is that they're probably not paranoid.
I think a lot of people are unaware of who may be looking at what they post on the Internet. It simply doesn't occur to them.
But the space gives me a rare opportunity to display some of my quirkiness - those things that help to make me, well, me.
That's how I see this. I'm usually happy to find that someone has more about them on the net than what we can find on their manufactured "about us" page(s).
Fake nose picking... well, that's just plain cheesy, but at least they are probably a real person. I think some of the people I meet online might be robots.
If this were true, we can eliminate anyone with an alternative lifestyle or anything outside the "norm" from the employee and employer workforce.
The things people do to relieve the stress of a work environment are their own business, posting idiotic pictures is such a mild form of release it's not even worth the mention. Sometimes people do it just to see how many people they can offend. In your case, +1. :-)
So you don't find crude humor funny - believe me, you will have greater differences with your co-workers and employers than a nose-picking pic. (Pun intended. OMG I'll bet that's not humorous in the least, sorry.)
" you can pick your friends or you can pick your nose,
but you can't pick your fiend's nose"
Hmmmm.... It's not as funny as I remembered it.
Hmmmm.... It's not as funny as I remembered it.
However, shouldn't it be:
You can pick your employee or you can pick your nose,
but you can't pick your employees nose.
Given the situation, I might have talked to her one more time to ask the one question: Do you know the difference between work and a beach party? A reply of no would be a signal to move on to the next applicant.
And I should’ve just asked a different interviewee if he bathes occasionally or if today was just special and also if he had plans to tell racial jokes to a customer of said race.
And before I gave a new hiree $250 for clothes because she was broke and had nothing to wear to work, I should have just asked her if she was going to later call me and admit she put it all up her nose.
Then of course there’s the guy that I should have asked if he knew the difference between working and surfing girlie sites all day for two weeks straight.
Seriously, I don’t care that she parties. I already knew she parties at least a little. She’d fit in fine in that respect. My previous business was a bar, my family treats drinking like a competitive sport, I married a man with lots o’ tattoos and hair down to his butt. My current favorite employee used to be a stripper and we have a guy in the back who smells like refer every day.
That myspace page didn’t make her look like a party girl. It made her look like little girl.
The job isn't rocket science - there are lots of applicants who look good on paper. I just need to weed out the riskier ones. Her not getting the job opens the door for me to talk to some one else.
By the way, to find this page, all I did was google her name and city. I didn't go to myspace.com a-looking.
I would ask her if she felt that she set realistic nose picking goals and was able to reach them on a consistent basis.
The job isn't rocket science
[edited by: JudgeJeffries at 1:35 am (utc) on Mar. 24, 2007]
So let me get this straight - a person's personal life has a bearing on the way they do business?
I’m not sure I understand the question. It is her personality, not personal life, that I think I probably wouldn’t like to be around every day.
If this were true, we can eliminate anyone with an alternative lifestyle or anything outside the "norm" from the employee and employer workforce
I admit it; I had to look it up:
An alternative lifestyle is a mode or style of conducting one's life that is considerably removed from the generally perceived norm. Alternative lifestyles are sometimes classified to include polygamy, communal living, and self mutilation practices among others.
Well 1 of them doesn’t bother me in the slightest, and the other 2 sound like they might be religions and the law says I can’t discriminate based on religion, so I’m hiring them as long as they don’t pick their noses in public.
How about you all; are you going to choose a polygamist or a self-mutilator to face your customers in the business you and your loved ones built with your hands and your hearts and struggled to keep from folding after 911? You get to choose who your coworkers are. Will you seek out the polygamist and the self-mutilator? Or will you look to the other 298 resumes on your desk?
Please don’t tell me there is a religion that picks. Holy Reamers of Yazoo City or something.
I certainly don't want everyone to be the same. In fact, it's desirable to have folks with a mix of skills and more personal qualities such as extroverts and introverts.
I would have still hired this person, but I would have kept this information in the back of my head. If it comes into the workplace, that's all I'm worried about. She can pick her nose all evening for all I care.
This person will also be with me a great deal and I was not remotely amused by her page, especially the big nose-pick pic.
That's the killer right there. It doesn't matter whether or not her sense of humor is good or bad, or whether you are intolerant or not. If you, personally, who happens to be the boss, cannot accept the employee, then game over, man.
I have been interviewing for an open position in my department lately, and I am being damn picky. The person who takes the job will need to interface with skeptical Japanese and sell ice to eskimos, as well as run a hybrid technology infrastructure. If they do their job right, an international development organization will run smoothly. If they do it badly, then Bad Things Will Happen. How they deal with others will have a big effect on things.
If I find someone that will be able to handle the tech work, and seems to have decent people skills, and I see they have a wacky MySpace page, I will ask them to spend more time cultivating their online persona. I will let them know that this is something that I might be able to accept, but the Japanese will not.
I find that it is best to maintain some separation between my work and my personal profiles online. I don't go to great lengths to stay anonymous, but I make it definite work to connect the two. In both cases, I do try to behave myself, but I need to be able to have a place "let it all hang out."
I will say this about a culture of excellence. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately.
A culture of excellence is composed of a lot of square pegs. It's full of drama and ego. Arrogance comes with the territory. You have prima donnas and eccentric scientists. It is difficult to manage and running HR for an organization like this is challenging, to say the least.
You don't get a culture of excellence by whittling square pegs into round ones. You get one my making round holes into square ones.
However, you don't need a culture of excellence in all departments or companies, and it is often not worth the effort to cultivate and maintain one.
I don't have an issue with your decision. It was perfectly reasonable. You are the one who gets to be picky because you are the boss. There's also a good chance she may not have enjoyed the job anyway, and it would have been far worse to have personal relationship frictions come up later on.
After that experience, I'd probably check if a prospective employee makes extensive time to modify their myspace or blogspot page; if so I would want to avoid paying them hourly to do so, you see. ;)
