Ask HN: Googling your name shows a lot of relevant online presence: do you look less professional? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Googling your name shows a lot of relevant online presence: do you look less professional?

11 pointsi_am_neuron23 comments

Every reasonable employer will google for your name before or after the interview -- this is absolutely clear nowadays. However, if the top results he or she finds are bunch of comments left by the interviewee in communities (I am talking here about the relevant ones, like Hacker News, Stackoverflow, you name it), will this destroy or stronger your reputation?

Does this person looks more like a one who likes chatting about Java, or Python, or Ruby, or VCs, or holywars, or whatever else with other hackers more than delivering the actual result? What do you think?

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That's why I use a one way name. It's easy to go from this name to my real name, but it's not as easy to go from my real name to this name. I stand by the things I say here, but I do not want to have to explain them, or have them permanently associated with me when anyone does a casual google search.

I sure hope they google me - I am apparently with Copenhagen Business school, a filmmaker, a photographer and (twice) a carpenter. Well at least I am no longer a gay porn star.

I'm a professor at Cornell, a doctor in NYC, and an antique dealer in Florida.

It took google to finally make me cool.

Earlier this year a 17 year old in New Zealand became the second Tim Cederman to exist online. Hopefully nobody will get confused though, as his presence is anything but professional...

I think you have it backwards. I do a lot of interviews, and I would love to see more interviewees who care about Python versus Java, why can't Rails scale, et cetera. Everyone spends their spare time doing something - if you spend it talking about relevant technologies that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

What do I think?

1. I think you look a lot less like a forty-something or fifty-something business manager, but only because most people of that generation who weren't in computers grew up with Usenet, mailing lists, or BBS's. So if their idea of "professional" is to be just like that, no, you don't look professional.

2. I think my children will laugh at this question: They will grow up being on CCR 24/7 in public, with facebook and its descendants being their social hubs, and with everyone able to see transcripts of everything. That doesn't mean your question is laughable, only that this is a very temporary phenomenon driven by a generation gap.

Have you seen http://hitbio.com? You can comment your google search results and forward the the 'bio' you just created to your potential employer.

So Stackoverflow is a relevant community now? Huh....

Anyway, I suppose it depends on the type of job you're after. Want a position in the FBI as a spy? Probably not gonna happen if you're a twitter junkie, I'd guess. Want a job as a web developer? Probably more likely to happen if the employer thinks you have your "finger on the pulse".

I think that, as long as you don't have stupid things on the web that make you look unprofessional, you're okay.

I think that, as long as you don't have stupid things on the web that make you look unprofessional, you're okay.

I thought this also, but imagine your interviewer found your profile on a Lisp hackers site. You (probably) know Lisp, fine. And though your reasoning in the relevant forums about... hmmm (I'm not a Lisp hacker)... difference between macros and function may be perfectly plausible, interviewer could probably think that it is he who will have to pay you for the time spent chatting.

As someone thinking about hiring an employee to help me, finding his name in such a conversation would be strong hire sign for me... Anybody who is passionate enough about programing to spend some time in such communities is a potential strong hire...

"interviewer could probably think that it is he who will have to pay you for the time spent chatting."

Well, if you're planning on spending some of your time at work arguing about Lisp online anyway, why hide that from your employer? Either they're OK with it and it doesn't matter, or they won't like it and you probably wouldn't want to work there anyway.

Unless your real name is "I.M Neuron," you have nothing to worry about.

Actually that brings an interesting request.

When I registered to HN it was in a second - all it wanted was a username and password. super cool. I gave my short name and voila I have an account.

Now there is a lot of data collected and google is picking it up. I want to change my username to my full name which I use every where else. How about an option to migrate or change visible username if they are not already taken.

That would be great. I'm in the exact same boat. I've also recently realized that googling my name gives me someone else for the number one result, and that dude isn't even in the software industry.

I've always kept a fairly high degree of anonymity online just because I'm used to the old BBS days of pirate nicknames; but in places like here, it feels awkward for me to respond to someone by name, when my nickname is a misspelled word.

"googling my name gives me someone else for the number one result, and that dude isn't even in the software industry."

You say this like it's a bad thing. I would say it was great news. The likelihood that people searching for you being confused is significantly reduced.

How in the world did you know?

Fuck. That. Shit.

http://xkcd.com/137/

If your comments are generally "+1, Insightful" sort of stuff, then this would generally help you.

Of course, this is based on the premise that you also have decent references and can speak to accomplishments in your prior job. If all you have are online comments, then you don't have much going for you. If you have a strong resume and experience plus quality posts in relevant forums, that should work in your favor.

Create a personal website and use some SEO voodoo magic to make it the top result for search engines. That way, when potential employers search for you, you can control what they see, to a certain extent.

I've been trying to delete accounts with my name tied to them (emailed Sir Graham asking to delete this one a month ago), but I'm on the fence. I think that generally what I write reflects positively.

I sure wouldn't want a prospective employer, headhunter, or customer of contract services to find any of my posts here that start with, "My startup...".

Why would they want to hire someone who would be gone as soon as their startup took off?

The chances of a startup taking off are likely smaller than the chances of a hacker taking a better position. My employer knows about my startup.

"stronger" your reputation? :)

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