Struggling to keep its traffic up, MySpace recently launched a job search called MySpace Careers. Problem is, as the New York Times reported yesterday, MySpace profiles ruin job prospects.
Corporate recruiters work just like Gawker Media (and just like you before a blind date), the New York Times reveals — by sniffing around the MySpace and Facebook profiles of prospective hires. In a sloppily researched article (no, MySpace is not only two years old), the Times checks out how this phenomenon screws perfectly cool people over. Tien Nguyen (pictured) lost interview chances because he was clever. Other kids are getting turned down for having, well, great enthusiasm for their line of work:
For a company so picky when hiring, Google's playing the field pretty wide. They pulled this stunt with PR hires last month, so it should be no surprise that Google's now spamming for new engineers. A friend of Valleywag says:
Sand Hill Slave deserves a better job. The anonymous VC assistant is taking inquiries for employment, she says on her blog. And no, this isn't a chance to uncover her secret identity — interviews are by IM, and any contract must include a no-outing-the-blogger clause. In return, the Slave's employer won't end up on the blog.
Did everyone miss this detail in the Flickr blog? The photo sharing company is moving to Yahoo's San Francisco office. Meanwhile, Flickr looks to hire eight more professionals for its already ballooned post-acquisition staff, and founder Stewart Butterfield ostensibly posted the job listing himself.
A reader fleshes out the Google PR headhunt spam story:
MIT and Harvard grads, sick of Stanford kids getting all the offers? Polish the CV, says a reader, and keep an eye out for Tom's goons. Getting picked up on MySpace never felt so good.
Quick note — when you apply to assist Larry and Sergey at Google HQ, there may be some dress code issues.
The support team for Larry and Sergey needs a fourth member. According to the Google Jobs post, the new hire will handle super-classified work like the Google founders' schedules, security, hotels (that bit's easy, only one room to reserve), and other "highly sensitive, confidential and non-routine information."
Lloyd Braun is digging in his heels again. The media group head (the one with one foot out the Yahoo door) is hiring another assistant, who must be experienced, proficient in Microsoft Office, team player, yadda yadda... lot of qualifications for someone whose job will last, like, another three weeks...
