I wonder how many people are posting false information about themselves to impress folks like you?

Just two words of caution. First, be careful of namespace conflicts. If you Google me, you’ll discover that I’m either a famous chemist, or a famous playwright and novelist, or a nondescript developer and blogger.

Secondly, apply a statute of limitations on the material you will take into consideration. People change.

On the one hand, he saw the benefits. “Responsible hiring practices,” as he put it. Due diligence.

What will keep him away from Google is fear of what he will uncover. If he turns up a assault charges, or a chronic DWI history, these are things that are bound to influence him, whether he wants them to or not, but that legally shouldn’t. If he hires someone knowing about a history of violent assault, and that someone turns out to be abusive to employees, what position does that put him in? But if he doesn’t hire because of this knowledge and a lawsuit is pressed, he’d be in the position of having to explain why.

Colleges are warning students to be careful what they put online. That MySpace/Facebook page with pix of wild parties might come back to haunt you, costing you a job offer. That’s the theory, anyway.

Now the fun comes when you have a name like mine. My journal page doesn’t appear until page 3 of Google’s results. So sure, yep, I’m a painter, politician and professional skateboarder :)

I see nothing unethical about googling job candidates. It is, as Jeff Barr suggests, due diligence.

However, I work for a government agency, where the hiring process is so tightly regimented that it’s a wonder we ever hire anyone. Interview questions are carefully vetted by HR, and deviation from those questions is verboten. This is to protect the candidate from questions that employers are not allowed to ask. (Actually, HR’s level of involvement varies quite a bit. In my own office, they never ask to see the questions. I’ve been involved in search committees, though, where they not only review questions, they are present at every contact with the condidates.)

I can easily imagine that if given a chance, a gun-shy HR office would actively seek to prevent googling of job applicants. And we’ll probably see lawsuits.

Don’t forget that companies often pay for background checks before making a hire. Some companies will also retrieve and inspect a credit report.

As far as I can tell, information that I’ve left behind is fair game for a potential employer to use to help or hinder my application for employment.

It seems to me that your online footprint may be a very effective adjunct to a more formal resume. What if you forgot to mention some cool side project or a paper that you wrote long ago and that turns up in a Google search? What if your tendency to write carefully worded posts to some forum system shows potential employers that you have untapped writing, technical, or social skills?

To put the shoe on the other foot, I am generally quite disappointed if a potential candidate has no online presence whatsoever, and I do ask about this in interviews.