Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

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  1

  Ian P

  09/07/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Wow - that site breaks about 4 UK and 2 European privacy and data protection laws.
  Not really certain if I broke our laws by doing a quick search on someone. This internet thingy fudges legal juridstiction boundaries.

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  2

  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/07/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re Note 1:
  Interesting. Actually, Intellus only gave me the real name, addresses, and former addresses. The rest was retrieved by searching on the real name in Google, after confirming (on an old Facebook page) that I was really investigating the same person.

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  3

  ndlicht1

  09/08/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  I used the site to validate it just now. My cell phone was reported to a different city, a different address, a different everything and none of it was me or near me. My home phone was correct.
  
  I did it twice and got the same VERY WRONG information twice. So, I would be a "liar" also and the name would be "changed" also as would any info I then googled based on Intellis.
  
  Want to interview that lady again - this time without intellis.com as your starting point?
  
  So much for trusting Intellis.com.

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  4

  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/08/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re Note 3:
  Actually, you just learned that your identity has been stolen. Useful, if not what you were looking for.

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  5

  jerry macioch

  09/08/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  This is the stupidest piece of writing I've laid my eyes on in this section.

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  6

  tjakubow

  09/08/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Wrong, wrong, wrong info at intellus, and I have no alerts as to identity theft.
  
  I'm down on my luck these days, and there are some pretty good reasons (medical) why. It's probably time for you to have your own experiences with "down on your luck" to understand that for every crook there are 10-100 honest folks with stories that can't be told, at least not in employment interviews.
  
  Congratulations on using a less-than-factual source for backing up the emotional component of your hiring process. You've identified, without admitting it, just how flawed your decisions can be. A reasonable person might have re-visited this middle-aged person, but not you.
  
  "...never trust anybody over 30..." I think the saying went.

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  7

  konstantint

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  3 checks

  there is the rule in finance analysis and investigation practice - a data have to be proveb by 3 undependent sources of information.
  
  You've use only one. My sugestion is to ask her about the fact you found - the second source. The third - is up to you.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re Note 6:
  First, I just used Intellus to find her real name and address and the name of former businesses. The rest of the information was the result of Google searches based upon her real name. There is no question whatsoever that they were the person in question because the same photograph of her was on both the pages under her old name and the pages under her new name. In any case, I did speak with her about it and explain why I didn't hire her.
  
  So your anger and frustration isn't really appropriate. It's very interesting, though, and makes me wonder why you'd have such an emotional reaction to an event that has absolutely no relevance in your own life.

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  9

  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re note 5:
  "This is the stupidest piece of writing I've laid my eyes on in this section."
  
  Read more; I'm sure you'll find something even more stupid quite quickly.

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  10

  mike at profiles

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Good lord people grow up. Like it or not, this is a reality of our times. I look at it much like personal credit reports. You have to diligently protect your reputation just like your credit score. I think Geoffrey's article is appropriate for the times. I don't hear him saying this was the sole reason why he didn't hire the person.
  
  Today no company can afford to make a bad hire. I think it is reasonable to assume that companies or services hired by companies are conducting internet searches of candidates.
  

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  11

  powerpoint

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Ironically I'm a middle-aged woman in marketing and did a quick check on myself using Intelius. My birth date, current address, and relatives were right but everything else was inaccurate -- wrong phone numbers/area codes, missing employment, stating employment for an organization I worked with but not was employed by, etc. I would not rely on this product for other than the basics. However, don't let the invalidity of Intelius distract you from Geoffrey's valid points -- be aware of the trail you leave, and if you are a bull***t artist, it is going to get much harder for you.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re: Being middle aged.
  
  There's a theme in the above comments that's a bit off the mark, so I'll address it here. I saw the fact that she was middle aged as an ADVANTAGE rather than a drawback. I prefer seasoned professionals when I want precision work accomplished.

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  13

  tjakubow

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  I've had a very successful career sellling ($100K+)and managing sales people, so I know a thing or two about the hiring process and dealing with people and their situations.
  
  The relevance to your article is the other side, counterpoint to your story. Now I'm certain that there are more people like you who go poking around after the fact in support of that "feeling" instead of probing it at the time of the interview.
  
  Dad never said life was fair, but you need to come down a step or two.
  
  That's it; I'm done.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re Note 13:
  Look, I hire subcontractors about once a year and usually for very short periods of time, so what I do in my business (such as it is) isn't at all that important. As a hiring manager, I'm not a role model for anybody.
  
  What's important here is that the process that I used WILL DEFINITELY be used by some hiring managers. Whether it's a good idea or not is irrelevant. It's already happening, and I was just using my own experience to illustrate how easy it is. If I can do it, with my limited resources, you can bet your sweet bippy that corporate America will be doing it.
  
  BTW, I understand that one of the major user groups for intellus.com consists of single women checking up on guys who ask them out. As a result of that, and other online sources, it's now very difficult for a guy to pretend to be, say, a stock broker, when he actually works in the stockroom.

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  15

  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Closing off the annoying underline that remains from Note 13. Wish they'd fix that.
  

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  16

  mike at profiles

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  The most ironic part for me is the whole selection discussion. When I post comments I don't comment about who I work for however I will make a general comment about what I see as a shifting paradigm regarding hiring practices.
  Companies cannot afford to make bad hires so they are looking for additional information. The problem is a dysfunctional paradigm that traps hiring managers into selecting or promoting based upon the belief that successful performance is an extension of a person?s knowledge, training and experience. Although knowledge, training and experience are relevant research has shown time and again that high performers have a specific learning style, set of cognitive abilities, behavioral traits and occupational interests that FIT THAT POSITION. It is critically important to understand a person?s innate behaviors and interests when trying to match him with the right job. Know the job, know what type of person is successful in that job, and then hire or promote others who have the behavioral traits that fit that job. The person in Geoffrey?s example would have skewed the distortion scale (dishonesty) and probably the behavior traits would not have been in line with the desired job match pattern.
  The paradigm is shifting even in people?s personal life. Look at the popularity of online people matching services. They tout the ability to match people across ?19 attributes of compatibility?. These sites are effective because they focus on the compatibility of people. The same principles apply to compatibility to a job.
  All I am saying is that going forward companies are going to rely more and more on predictive job match patterns (NOT DiSC, Myers Briggs and other social style instruments) to assist them in making the appropriate hires, understanding capabilities of incumbents and succession planning.
  

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  jerry macioch

  09/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Digital content is ephemeral not eternal. More importantly it is excessively malleable. I don't blame you for trying to cover all the bases but nothing is what it seems in this digital wilderness. What I think companies like Intellius do is string together data from phonebooks, business registers, censuses etc. , all of which is publicly available (if you know where to look) and charge a fee for it.
  As for two failed businesses - I admire the persistence. Henry Ford was once a bankrupt - wasn't he?

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  18

  elizabethrizzo

  09/10/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  You did an unauthorized background check then prejudged her hobbies as "flakey" and used that as a basis of a denial of employment?
  
  Cyberstalking is flakey....and just creepy.

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  19

  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  09/10/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Your Reputation in Sales is Now Eternal

  Re Note 18:
  Point taken. It felt creepy. But the point isn't what I did, the point is that hiring managers and customers are going to do it -- whether you and I think it's creepy or not.
  
  And you didn't see the hobbies. Whew!