How far should we go in censoring ourselves? What we put up on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, all that jazz, lives forever and can make potential employers, maybe potential dates or friends, steer clear of us. If we worry too much about that, will we be misrepresenting ourselves as boring, vanilla people with no brains and no opinions? Shouldn’t potential employers realize they’re hiring human beings who have points of view?
Dave Phelps had a thought-provoking piece in the Sunday Star Tribune. It tells of some job candidates who lost jobs because of stuff they’d said online about other companies, about politics, about their own lives. “Before a job hunt, put a lid on tweets,” the headline reads.
One local placement specialist had a candidate lose a job because the potential employer didn’t like a negative political posting on the candidate’s Facebook page. Another headhunter said people put too much about their personal lives on their social-networking pages. “Divorce, sick parents, recovery programs,” the headhunter said, “if someone is having a big issue in life,” would an employer take a chance and hire that person?
Rose McKinney, president of Risdall McKinney Public Relations, told Phelps she didn’t give a job interview to a promising candidate because “on blog spaces and in Twitter conversations she was negative and critical of other agencies. I imagined what she would say about us and our clients.”
How hard should we bite our own tongues?

This is an issue the writers of this blog have thought about since our first post more than two years ago. Will potential clients not hire us, or existing clients fire our butts, if we say out loud what we really think about the senate recount or unallotment? I’ve written some things about out-of-control capitalism that I doubt the CEOs of my client companies would agree with. But I haven’t been fired so far — probably cuz nobody that important reads this stuff.
Strikes me that if companies are looking to hire people with no political opinions, no family or personal problems, and no critical views, they should recruit in Stepford or the cemetery. Sure, people shouldn’t be stupid, shouldn’t rail against Target or Medtronic if they hope to get a job there. But, especially in PR, shouldn’t we be looking to hire people with active brains, people who can write compelling stuff, people with critical faculties, people with some life experience? PR shops shouldn’t just look for perky clean-slate-brained bobbleheads — we’ve got too many of those now. Hire someone with grit, with gumption, with a little fire!
What do you folks think? How careful are you about what you put out on the web? How big an issue is this?
Years ago, when I worked at Mona Meyer McGrath & Gavin, I came into work one morning pretty pleased with myself because I had an op-ed printed in the Strib that morning about how pesky cell phones are. It was whimsical whining about not being able to get away from the damn things. On my computer was a note from my boss, mentor and dear friend Dennis McGrath. “See me.” He reminded me, rather forcefully, that we had a cell phone company as a client. He inquired if I was a natural-born idiot or if I’d acquired my idiocy on my own initiative. The client was rather irked, and Dennis had to do some backing and filling. I’m embarrassed to say I simply hadn’t thought of our roster of clients as I wrote. I did get a lot of “you go boy” responses from my own clients, who also felt cell phones were both a burden and a useful tool. Maybe that experience is part of why I don’t work at an agency anymore.
Those of you out there who hire — how spooked are you by signs of opinions and weird or troubled life experience in your candidates? How much should we all bite our tongues? Me, I can seldom bite my tongue because I can’t get past the foot I’ve stuck in my mouth.
– Bruce Benidt
(Image from Jeanette Chávez, film still from Autocensura, [Self Censorship], 2006)