Hiring a person’s past
by Miki SaxonI’ve written several times regarding how stuff posted online will never go away—no matter what you do—and the impact this has/will have—especially on your professional life.
Between now and June 15, Harvard is doing an interactive study on the subject. Read the case study and think about how you would handle the situation.
Information found on non-traditional sites needs to be taken with anything from a grain to a pound of salt, knowing that much of what’s written in social media is often untrue or, at the least, vastly exaggerated.
People do grow up (one hopes) and we’ve all done/do silly/stupid things in our lives—from birth to death—that we don’t expect to be widely publicized. The problem today is that our best buddy, who thinks something is really funny/interesting/gross, will post it somewhere to share with friends, and from there it travels over the world.
But what if the information is more serious and from a reputable news source?
Would you hire an activist involved in protests? Activists are passionate and you want passion in your people.
Would it depend on whether you agreed or disagreed with their cause?
This is the essential question—since a “yes” leads directly to homophily and guarantees less creativity/innovation in your organization.
