That's why I prefer staying semi-incognito on internet, and don't have e.g. an active Facebook account. It may be some employer just having a different political view than you, that he/she decides not to employ you.

I've had a bit similar experiences in dating, though. :) Apparently long in the past I had written something to internet with my own name, and some woman I was seeing started questioning me about it, in a Spanish inquisition way. "What did you mean when you wrote a decade ago that..." etc.? WTF? Especially considering it was something written a very long time ago?

I was disappointed she had chosen to "spy" on me that way, while at the same time it hadn't even occurred to me to try to find everything about her online. I made a decision right there that maybe we should stop seeing each other. For some reason she seemed surprised I was offended by her spying, and she pleaded me to reconsider (ie. keep seeing her). Meh, no thanks, you blew it.

I have no idea if my wife has spied on me online, but is she has, at least she has kept it to herself. I don't ever recall trying to find anything about her online, I don't really see the point.

My opinion exactly but keep in mind that many people are in no position to be picky about who they want to work for and if an employer chooses another applicant because that other person seemed to have more 'social proof' and seemed like the 'safer bet in terms of social skills and teamplay ability' then the person with no online presence is at a disadvantage even if they aren't being suspected of hiding anything bad. Unless you have credentials and references of course but it takes more time to validate those than to do a little online search so I wouldn't be surprised if some HR staff might choose the lazier option.

'Social proof' according to the average mind when checking people out online = visible number and (more importantly) level of normality of friends on FB, presentable and sympathetic photos of themselves with other sympathetic people. So it's not just the absence of bad stuff that could cause employers to pick one person over another but also the presence of what they believe to be good signs.

I don't have a facebook or twitter account but if I did I don't think it would hurt me since I have a very common name.

I known people who have got in trouble with it social media so I don't do it

Here's an idea - how about not using that crap at all, and doing something more productive with your time ?

In my case it was somewhat the opposite, I got the job partly due to social media.

First of all, my Facebook account is marked as private, so only friends can see what I post there; then on Twitter I mostly write all the stuff that crosses my mind, including NSFW things, but also (used to) write a lot about coding/technology.

The thing that really got me in though was my GitHub account and the fact that I was able to prove to them that I know what I'm talking about and that I keep myself interested in writing code.

As an aside though, I wouldn't want to work for a company which doesn't differentiate between its employees private and work-life.

I actually had to create a FB profile for work a few years back when the management decide they wish to keep a track of their employees. I had to add them as a friend and promise not to do naughty things. It was mostly to see who might be the spy leaking information like *whispers* we may or may not buy our stock in from China, we may or may not have nepotism running the companies management structure, we may or may not.....................

The sad fact is that I have rarely ever used FB and what I have put up there will never cause any real problem. The only problem I have is that everyone I work with wanted to suddenly be friends with each other on FB and now they all suffer the problem of having to continually hide things from one another.
I also removed my work as a "friend" after a while and they never really missed me, so it just sits there eating up space somewhere for no good reason, much like myself.

The name people see here is more problematic to myself as I act more naturally under it and even say things I would regret online otherwise at times. I use this name everywhere and if my employer used their brain they would easily find how I really used the internet. NSA/GCHQ did.

On the positive side, a long time ago I was offered a job as some kind of writer for a gaming magazine (I presume a game reviewer, or maybe writing some technical articles for them as that was my main interest on their forum). I was quite active on their discussion forum, and for some reason they liked my writing there enough to offer me a job.

I had to decline though, I had just started my current career which had nothing to do with gaming and seemed much more lucrative in a monetary sense (and I am pretty sure it has been that, how much money do game reviewers make anyway? Or do they work for free nowadays?). And frankly I prefer keeping my hobbies as hobbies, I fear that making them my career takes all the fun out of it.

That is horrific! I admit that I can be paranoid (I avoid CCTV and don't have FB, Twitter etc..) but by any standard, this is a complete abuse of power and surely infringes on privacy laws.

As well as the monitoring via social media, how dare they have such a lack of trust in their employees. We're adults for goodness sake. Sorry for the mini-rant.....management <> superior.

isnt that its whole point?

OT but while I avoid FB my brother and his family have embraced it and I realized the other day that if god forbid something were to happen to Facebook all proof of their existence would vanish; unless he has one of his kids with him in the room it is literally impossible for him to prove he has kids without this thing. It's disturbing thoughts like that which keep me away.

I don't have a Facebook account. I'm not really into social media at all, never was. Nice way to avoid that kind of stuff.

Totally this xD

Indeed. Part of the point of HR is to disqualify as many of the possibilities as quickly as possible. The only problem is that the HR department tends to be stocked with people that are completely unqualified for productive work in society.

It's hardly unheard of for the applications to be tailored in such a way as to get no qualified applicants so that they can bring in people from outside the country at pennies on the dollar.

But, this is nothing new, for those needing a background check, it conveniently allows them to use damn near anything they like and hearsay is perfectly acceptable.

What you mean like spending all of your time on the GOG forums and playing games? :D

Yep :D