Employment law: Be Careful of What You Do Online

Yes, Blog Comments Can Tank Job Prospects from ABA Journal - Law News Now focuses on lawyers but do not think it might not apply to you or to your employers. Who it applies to depends on how tech savvy is the employer.

Writing in the Am Law Daily, Lynne Traverse of Bryan Cave gives an example. A student interviewing for a summer associate position listed her blog on her resume. When a lawyer checked out the blog, it contained an entry from the student’s spouse about the cities where she hoped to be working. The city where the Bryan Cave office was located was not among them.

Traverse explains that Bryan Cave invests a lot of money in summer associates, and wants to hire students who really want to work at the firm.

“Blogs are dangerous since they tend to contain random, stream of consciousness entries as well as posts from people other than the job candidate,” Traverse adds. Expect that potential employers will look at blogs as well as social networking websites. “Watch out for those party pictures and personal information you don't think an employer will see.”

Students should instead make sure their blogs help their job search by posting descriptions of meaningful student and community activities or discussions of legal issues.