I've finally got a job interview... at last there's some hope!
As I knew my interviewer's name, I decided to do some research on him so I could go in vaguely prepared and knowing my audience.
In the good old days this research would probably be limited to looking them up in 'Who's who'. Nowadays the parameters have changed slightly. The internet has become a tool to finding out vast amounts of information about others.
My research started obviously enough on facebook and linkedin. A general google search followed up and opening any article that sounded promising. I had an additional advantage in that I knew what they look like so doing a google image search then look at the websites for pictures of them so I had a bit of a short cut.
As the title suggests, I was a bit scared about how much detail I found out about him. I have managed to glean a fairly complete and comprehensive history from simply putting their name in google. Graduation date, hometown, age, partner's name; all of that was on line and easy to find in a few minutes.
Now on the one hand I'm probably being a bit over-enthusiastic with my research. On the other, this information is freely available to anybody on the internet; there's possibly even more if you know where to look. To me this is terrifying, not because I have anything to hide, just because I like my privacy and not thinking that anything I do will appear on the internet.
Anyway, enough ranting from me. Back to the actual business of mugging up.
JR
As I knew my interviewer's name, I decided to do some research on him so I could go in vaguely prepared and knowing my audience.
In the good old days this research would probably be limited to looking them up in 'Who's who'. Nowadays the parameters have changed slightly. The internet has become a tool to finding out vast amounts of information about others.
My research started obviously enough on facebook and linkedin. A general google search followed up and opening any article that sounded promising. I had an additional advantage in that I knew what they look like so doing a google image search then look at the websites for pictures of them so I had a bit of a short cut.
As the title suggests, I was a bit scared about how much detail I found out about him. I have managed to glean a fairly complete and comprehensive history from simply putting their name in google. Graduation date, hometown, age, partner's name; all of that was on line and easy to find in a few minutes.
Now on the one hand I'm probably being a bit over-enthusiastic with my research. On the other, this information is freely available to anybody on the internet; there's possibly even more if you know where to look. To me this is terrifying, not because I have anything to hide, just because I like my privacy and not thinking that anything I do will appear on the internet.
Anyway, enough ranting from me. Back to the actual business of mugging up.
JR
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