We have talked about it on the show anecdotally, but now we have evidence: employers are increasingly looking up potential employees for stuff on the Internet.
What are they looking for? Perhaps that poem on Facebook that you wrote about how nasty that one boss you once had was.
Seriously, some the things they looked for:
* drinking/drugs
* inappropriate photos or talk
* sharing confidential former-company data
The survey doesn’t say it, but I imagine this ‘1 in 5″ is heavily skewed towards employers hiring public-facing employees. If they can see it easily, potential customers can see about it their future employees too.
Hey kids! Be more paranoid!
Here is some good news: no mention of the wayback machine.