Take My Privacy, Please!

Now that school's back in session, many students are being advised to not place embarassing photos of themselves online... employers these days are making it a habit of Googling potential hires... and there are numerous cases where people have been fired because of "unprofessional" content on Flickr, their blog, or a Facebook profile.

My advice? Any company that fires kids for acting like kids is a horrible place to work... Plus: you don't need them half as much as they need you.

Hear me now: we are looking at a bit of a demographic crunch in the next few years... there are shockingly few talented people able to fill needed jobs. A junior software engineer in India can demand $45,000 for their first year... so wave bye-bye to cheap offshore talent. When even China is having labor shortages, something is very wrong. The Economist calls this the global talent shortage, and it's gonna get messy.

Employers: for your own sake, understand that your employees are people, not profiles. Yes, the latest generation has done some crazy stuff... but it's probably a lot less crazy than what George W. Bush did in his youth... the only difference is the openness. The older generations think the young must be lunatics for posting their exploits for all to see... youthful indiscretions are to be supressed!

Frankly, these kids don't understand what the fuss is about...

Recent college graduates have never known a world without reality TV. Dig this: The Real World has been on MTV for fifteen years. Graduates have seen people they admire make complete idiots of themselves, but all can be forgiven if you're a decent person.

I'd wager the following will happen:

• Unenlightened and dull organizations will implement policies against hiring people with embarrassing profiles.
• Exciting and fun companies won't care, as long as you're a talented and genuine person.
• Dull companies will hire boring, untalented, and duplicitous employees.
• Fun companies will hire exciting, talented, and honest employees.

Take a guess who will win in the end.

Now... there are some situations where the tendency to reveal too much will get you in hot water. Legal, government, the secret formula for Coke... although many people believe that more openness even in those areas will help the world in general.

Pragmatically speaking, there are certain roles which (at present) necessitate a bit of secrecy... and a blogging maniac would be ill-suited for them. However, that doesn't mean that it should be a general policy for an entire organization! That's shooting yourself in the foot.

If I ran a mutual fund, I'd take note of any company with a rigid policy of firing employees based on bad Facebook profiles... because they will almost certainly fail to hire enough new talent in the oncoming talent crunch.