Our online Personas - can they hurt our candidacy?

Posted Dec 17 2008 7:50 AM by the JobsBloggers

By Eric Stutzman

Recently Janelle talked about MySpace / Facebook and if the use of them will "hurt your dreams of landing a great job at Microsoft..." 

Within this Priya asked "I'm also interested in knowing will my blog posts relating to other companies products/services hurt my chances with Microsoft?  In other words, if I had written blog post in praise of Google's certain services will it hurt my MSFT potential?” 

Well this got me thinking a bit about my own online presence.  In short I would say that praising another company on a blog, customer comment page or anything else will not have any affect over your potentially becoming a Microsoft employee. 

I know many have heard the rumors that iPods are banned from campus and that certain technologies are blocked from use on campus and well.... the world needs its myths now doesn't it.  I can assure you that you will see MANY iPods in use on campus and that all search engines, desktop search apps and many other non-Microsoft technologies are used by our employees.  Let's face it in the developer world, especially here at Microsoft, innovation and creativity thrives from competition.  Not too mention that we love our geek toys/apps as much as the rest of the world!

While I am fairly new to JobsBlog (from a contributors point of view) I certainly am not new to online communities be it message boards, other blogs and the likes of Myspace; where the music community is one of my favorite haunts.  Now I have seen a fair share of personal sites that, while I wouldn't want them attached to candidates resumes and in front of Hiring Managers, they wouldn't be a show stopper (most of them anyways).

I have been an avid online gamer since 95/96 and I even spent a couple years around that time at a company whose browser product was once known as Mosaic. ;) The beauty of the online communities is the online persona and the anonymity that it brings us.  Now I am not saying this gives you carte blanche to say whatever, wherever; not at all!  I am simply saying that most of the folks that I engage with in these communities know me as a mandolin player or an online game competitor and not Eric the Recruiter from Microsoft.  I also post by some common sense guidelines; do not post when angry, do not gloat - too much ;) - about your victories and do not post anything that you wouldn't share with mom!   I think that by following a set of guidelines like this there isn't a lot of room for negative splash back from your online presence and its effect on your potential Microsoft Employee status is null. 

~Eric

7 Comments

  • eR0CK said:

    Ironically enough, someone here was my recruiter (not naming names :-) ), but I recall during some of my first interviews both via e-mail and on the telephone I stressed that I had worked with Linux Fedora, Apache, and VMware (all non-MS technologies).  I was still selected for an interview, so I can vouch for my personal experience.  Candidates shouldn't worry about what company you blog about or the technology you use.  The fact is recruiters and Microsoft in general is looking for candidates that go out there and dig and are active in the tech community.  Anything you do that shows you have dedication and ambition to learn is really what you want to show recruiters.  IMHO, recruiters aren't 'turned-off' because you built an app in Linux; the fact that you did it is the important part ... not the platform for which it was built on.





    -Erich

  • Tashfeen said:

    I would second Erich on that. During my interviews, all my projects were done on linux or non msft technologies. But this didnt stop me from getting the phone interviews, the fly in, and the special email :)...





    I'd guess that major part of the interview is done to assess the candidates ability to come up with design, solutions, and test cases to different problems, scenarios and situations...The fact that someone worked on other technologies can always be used as a plus for by candidates. Shows a broad and diverse technology experiance...





    --Tashfeen


    <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://wordpress.com">http://wordpress.com</a>

  • andy said:

    From my own personal experience of interviewing @ Redmond I can vouch that using linux or any other competing technology is not going to hinder one's chances of getting an offer. My resume contained projects mainly on Java/non-msft technologies. Dare I mention that there was no C# mention on my resume. As a company they want to judge you on your thought process and if you could come up with alternative solutions, design and test cases.

  • Joe M said:

    I must say this is a great tool.

  • Eric said:

    Thanks for the comments.  





    I know that when I look for candidates I certainly am looking for solid object oriented design and development skills along with the ability to solve algorithm related questions and determine the efficiency using big-O notation.  To me the language and platforms are like tools in the tool box and yes - MS technology is a plus, but certainly not a hardline.





    I am glad to see that your experiences have been inline with how I do my candidate searches!





    Have a great weekend!





    ~Eric

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