When students register for a writing class I teach, I
typically set up a Google alert for their name. I'm not trying to be alerted to
any misdeeds or glories; I simply like to keep up with their writing.
Often students alert me when a piece is published or posted, but just as often, after they've moved on from my class, graduate and get on with their careers, they don't. I do look to see if any of the work we've done in class has transferred over into their online work, but mostly, I simply enjoy reading what they have to write.
Often students alert me when a piece is published or posted, but just as often, after they've moved on from my class, graduate and get on with their careers, they don't. I do look to see if any of the work we've done in class has transferred over into their online work, but mostly, I simply enjoy reading what they have to write.
Google alerts doesn't capture every instance of a former
student posting an article, but the technological assist helps me keep up with
their work. I also use technology to learn more about my students when they
register for a class with me. They each fill out a one-page survey about, among
other things, what they read and what they might have written. If they list a
prior publication, I try to look it up and read it.
While I don't always announce to classes that I do this,
I make no secret of it and I see it as part of the research I do in preparation
for current and future classes. Some pieces from former students make it into
the assigned readings for future classes.
Working with students continues to be the best part of my
job.
I raise all of this because I continue to be surprised
when readers seemed shocked that a prospective employer or someone else
discovers something about them online that they hadn't made a point of
disclosing. If someone maintains a public Twitter account, which anyone with a
Twitter account can see, for example, they should not be surprised if racist,
misogynistic, anti-Semitic or other hateful Tweets they make get called out.
A fellow employee has every right to raise concern about
a colleague's hateful speech. We do have a right to free speech, but we do not
have the right to be hired by someone who finds such speech inappropriate and
likely to lead to a hostile work environment.
Access to online information about each of us also makes
it far more likely that any fabrications we might have made about our past to
secure gainful employment or simply higher regard from others will be
uncovered.
It's not a heavy lift to discover if someone claiming to
have earned an MBA from an Ivy League school actually spent several days on
campus to earn a non-degree certificate of completion. Nevertheless, some
employers still don't bother to double-check a candidate's stated credentials
before hiring them. Even if a fabricated degree isn't necessary for a particular
job, lying on a resume speaks to the integrity of the candidate.
I recognize that leaving my own footprint online leaves
my past open to discovery by students, readers and others. My proclivity for
collecting restaurant butter knives is not my proudest moment, but it's out
there.
When it comes to our expectations about online
information, the right thing is to be fair and respectful about how we use it
when it comes to others and to own that our past behavior can define how we are
perceived in the future.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2019 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
