Earlier this week, I heard about an acquaintance who had misrepresented himself on LinkedIn. He changed his profile to only show partial information about his work history. Plus, he added a company profile for his new consulting business and grossly lied about his 2009 revenue and the number of employees he had. All those changes were made because he desperately wants to find consulting clients to make money while looking for his next job and wanted to look established and successful.
But a simple Google search reveals that he’s lying on LinkedIn. His own website proves that his LinkedIn profile is false!
Shocked by this discovery, I decided to probe a little deeper and find what else Google could tell me about him. And I struck gold. On the first page of Google blog search for his name, a blog comment appeared. Not just any comment either; he’d written on a marriage counseling post saying that while he was still thin, his wife had gained a lot of weight and it has ruined their physical relationship. And, just in case a casual Google searcher might be tempted to dismiss the comment as written by someone else with the same name, he’d helpfully included the same professional photograph he uses on his website.
Did I mention that the marriage counseling blog is syndicated by another blog… and thus this person’s TMI comment appeared twice on the first page of Google blog search results?
Caught red handed
Learning all this took me about two minutes–and I didn’t even have to compare his LinkedIn profile to his website. Someone else had noticed the discrepancy in their weekly LinkedIn network update email (easy to notice because it was glaringly obvious) and told others about it. Once I heard about it, I compared the info in about 1 minute, and then dashed over to Google.
Luckily, I’m not in a position where I would be hiring this person… so it wasn’t the end of the world for me to find out this information. But, this is how it affected my perception of his personal brand. Even though he’s portrayed himself as someone who understands using the Internet to achieve business goals, he doesn’t demonstrate an understanding of how easy the web makes it for people to verify information and learn about others. He also obviously doesn’t understand that what he writes on the Internet can embarrass people. (How embarrassing for his wife if she stumbles across his comment about her! How much worse if someone else tells her about it!)
If I were looking to hire this person, and found all this out, I would definitely be taken aback. I would wonder if he’d told me things that weren’t true when we were interviewing, and I’d worry that he’d post sensitive information about my customers online. No matter how much value he could bring to my company, I would view him as a risk and think twice about hiring him.
Tough lessons learned
There are basically four lessons I derived from this personal branding fiasco:
- Don’t lie online. It’s way too easy to find out the truth.
- If you are dumb enough to lie, don’t be so dumb that your own website shows that you’re lying.
- Don’t share uncomfortable personal information about yourself or family members online.
- If you’re dumb enough to share uncomfortable personal information online, don’t be dumb enough to use your full name and professional picture.
When you’re branding yourself online, or even just interacting online, you’re broadcasting information to the world. Everything you do and say can be accessed, and will become part of how your future employers view you. Remember that at all times.
Don’t be the next cautionary tale. I don’t want to be writing about you.
Author:
Katie Konrath writes about creativity, innovation and “ideas so fresh… they should be slapped!” at www.getFreshMinds.com.
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Another reason why I joined Mike Dillards Association of Betternetworkers this week. We need some standards and the Code of Ethics for ABN cover this very point.
This is an unfortunate story. Blogging is also about trust. Your personal brand is inextricably linked to integrity and ethical behavior. Lying in print is a permanent stain.
Okay, so the LinkedIn and professional stuff is a major boob, but what someone says about their personal life shouldn’t be up for discussion.
The fact that the “embarrassing comment” was on marriage counseling site kinda negates how embarrassing it was. People have personal issues – they might not be able to talk it through with their spouses or partners. They may go elsewhere to get advice on how to broach a subject with their partner.
Calling someone dumb for what they do in their personal life is pretty below par, Katie – sorry.
@Danny Whatever this person does in their personal life is their own business. That’s not what’s dumb about it. What’s dumb is using their full name and photo on a post that shares uncomfortable information about their spouse and their relationship.
I comment on personal websites as well, and I have no problem with others doing so. It’s important to be able to talk about the problems you’re having.
But I never use my full name and I make sure it doesn’t link up with my professional profile in any way.
The problem with this comment on the marriage counselling website was that this person is looking for a job by trying to demonstrate their online expertise. And right now, when someone does a blog search for them, a comment that feels insensitive towards his wife comes up twice in the first page of results. It’s uncomfortable to come across.
That’s your choice to not use your full name, Katie – this guy wants to use his full name (as many do). Maybe he could have used a pseudonym or abbreviation, but he chose not to. Many others do. There’s a line between insensitivity and honesty that I feel is blamed too often and stops people being honest.
Twitter goes into Google; obviously blogs go into Google; Flickr comments go into Google. If we start dissecting every minute thing that goes into Google, then we’d never offer completely honest voices and opinions.
And a company that doesn’t employ the best person for a job because of a comment made on a marriage counseling site would come across as a little short-sighted.
I agreed with Danny to the point that we are making personal branding more isolated. Also, we should not judge hiring decision only by a comment.
I think we should create a standards and Code of Ethics as Andrew mentioned.
Thanks,
Great story Katie,
Is the blog comment that you found written recently or before years?
Thanks,
Google has become a great FBI agent, we must be careful to beware and watch our online posting. Thanks
@Danny You are right that he chose to use his full name. However, he did not do so because he wanted it to be connected to his personal brand, or because he felt it was important to be honest online. He simply did not think. It never occurred to him that using his full name would connect his comment to his personal brand.
I know that he’s mortified that others found the comment. It wasn’t “honest,” it was inappropriate. And it was not the image he wanted to project.
Though people are still using screen names and other pseudonyms, the cloak of anonymity the internet used to provide is gone. Anyone can get Googled, viewed on LinkedIn, Facebook, or quoted via Twitter. All of these things can be amazing for building your personal brand, but can also kill your professional reputation if used carelessly.
I dont think I would use that site after reading this. I think that kind of site should protect their clients, as they are obviously in an emotionally vulnerable state.
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