This means that if you are applying for a job, there is a good chance that the hiring manager will check out your MySpace, Facebook, or other web page. What you have on your social networking pages can both help your resume raise to the top of the pile, or be thrown in the garbage.

Of those hiring managers who do look at social networking pages, one third of which have dismissed candidates from consideration because of what they found. The top reasons they reported for removing a candidate from consideration are:

• Information about drinking or drug usage
• Provocative or inappropriate photographs
• Poor communication skills presented
• Bad-mouthing of previous employeers
• False qualification reported

On the other hand, some hiring managers found information on social networking sites which helped them to solidify their decision to hire a candidate. Some of the things they found which helped them with that decision were:

• Background information supported their qualifications
• Great communication skills
• Website portrayed a professional image
• Candidate had great references posted about them
• Wide range of interests

I know that in many of the positions for which I was given an offer, my professional website was at least viewed by those who were interviewing me.

I also know, however, that some companies have policies against researching a candidate online.

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I’ve accepted the offer, which means in January I’ll be moving to Fort Collins, Colorado. I’m very excited about this time of my life and I’m looking forward to all the new adventures which await me.

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Thank you for participating in the interviews we recently conducted on campus. Our recruiter was very impressed with your knowledge and abilities and we are actively reviewing your skills and interests against openings within HP.

My question is, how form letter-ish is this? Is this a generic email that they send to everyone they interview? Or does the recruiter actually have to be impressed for this form letter email to be sent?

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Dear Student,

The Central Interlligence Agency and the National Security Agency announce a joint recruiting session for BYU students-from all colleges and departments.

Notice the spelling of the third word of the second line. He he, funny.

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I’m typing this as he is giving his presentation. So far, he seems like a friendly guy, and he knows what he is doing, but he doesn’t impress me as being an industry leader. He is going over a bunch of visual studio stuff, and since I really don’t care about visual studio, I’m not very impressed.  He is talking about all of his specific features in visual studio, and all of them are either Microsoft platform specific, or things I’ve seen elsewhere in IDEs like Eclipse.

I started getting excited because he was going to show us about web services, but all it turned out to be was he did some visual studio thing and inserted some code he already wrote.

Why didn’t I sit closer to the door?  I could have grabbed my pizza and been home by now.

So the base idea was that it is super easy to write mobile applications with visual studio.  He said that if anyone could do anything similar on another platform in less than two days, that we should email him.  I might take that challenge.

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My work place is pretty casual. We have a lot of fun. Not every work place has its own pirate. Actually though, my coworkers aren’t always this weird. Just now and then.

Oh, and we might be hiring soon a programmer who actually knows what GNU is. I’ll give you a hint, GNU is not “Go Nuts University.” Anyone at BYU who would like to apply can send their resume to csr@chem.byu.edu.

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I have two pieces of advise for those who go for any interview:

1. Know what you know and know what you don’t know. While guessing might be cool on exams and tests, its not such a great thing during interviews. Your future employer doesn’t care if you are good at guessing, he wants to know if you know something or not.
2. Study up. If you know you are going for a particular job at a particular company, read up on the company, see what they do, what they make, and that sort of thing. If the job description lists several skills, review those skills so that you can easily remember the terminology and concepts involved in case you are asked about them.

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