Recruiting Animal

Reference Checking: Caught in the Net

Should you share your opinions online?

The Recruiting Animal has been actively trying to dismiss claims that we should be peering over our shoulders whenever we have fun online. But, yesterday, he saw a posting on a political blog that weakened his position at least a little bit.

Jack Layton, leader of Canada's NDP party, has claimed, after meeting Hamid Karzai, that he never called for the withdrawl of Canadian troops from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, for Jack, the news sites say otherwise.

Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton has repeated his earlier calls for Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, after four soldiers died on the weekend while battling Taliban militants. This is the wrong mission for Canada," Layton said. -- CBC, Sept 3, 2006

Members of the federal New Democratic Party on Saturday overwhelmingly endorsed party leader Jack Layton's call to pull Canadian troops from Afghanistan. -- CBC, Sept 9, 2006

Here's how the blogs are responding:

The lying scoundrel Jack Layton was on CBC news today saying that he didn't want Canadian troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, but just to them move to the North of the country. He says the MSM [Mainstream Media] has distorted his opinions. He is, of course, lying. -- Dr Roy

I suppose, in different circumstances, Dr Roy could be the guy who's reading your resume and decides to check out your online rants. That certainly puts a chill on freedom of speech.; it makes it easy to discount you for non-work issues like your political views.

See also: Political Blogger Suspended From Work. The Effect of the Internet on Culture.

MySpace: Will It Ruin Your Career?

JASON GOLDBERG THINKS SO.

Don JGo Jason Goldberg is proud as a new papa over his previously unkown cybersleuthing ability. Before he appeared on CNN, he checked out the myspace site of the show's production assistant and read some of the funny things she'd written there for the audience. Wow, JGo, you showed her.

Friends, this was the equivalent of an entry in a high school year book. Is it very revealing? I don't think so. Her favourite word is ergo. Does does that mean something to anyone but her psychiatrist? She says her job is a goat-herd. All that tells me is she'll never get a job as a comedian because her sense of humour is pretty lame. Surprisingly, she says she's living in the western Sahara and that actually seems to be true.

JGo got her on one point alone. She said that she's abrasive and you have to wonder what that means. Does that one concern prove JGo's point? Maybe. But the rest of it was nonsense of no consequence whatsoever. (Yes, there was a picture of her roomate in a bikini but who cares if she's gay).

Excessive Endorsements Backfire

Lady Mills McCartney, as Paul himself said yesterday, is no gold-digger.

What Heather digs is attention. She is blatant about it and that is what rankles.

All Heather's acts of altruism seem to be more about Heather than anything else.

On her official website, ostensibly a platform for her campaigns, there are gushing testimonials from friends and associates about what an incredible person Heather really is.

The Telegraph

HR Hot in China

Wage Growth for HR execs in China: 20%. (2004 to 2005)

Typical salary, top HR exec in a multinational: US $97,000 (Mercer).
Per capita income is 1% of that.

"The environment here was very different from anything the company had faced before." said Mike Cline a VP Global Personnel.

"There are a lot of messes here" says Dane Chamorro of Control Risks.

It's hard to do background checks on new employees which puts company secrets and policies at risk.

Corporate-snooping outfits are thriving as clients demand more background checks on their partners and employees.

Source: Russ Flannery in Forbes via Asia Pacific Headhunter