The Qube Exchange

Social networking and web 2.0 as a whole has had a tremendous impact on the world we live in. It has opened up banks of once private information to the public, enabling consumers to make smarter decisions. Just take the real estate industry as a prime example. Aggregation has completely changed the game, making it possible for businesses such as Trulia to combine the raw listing data with neighborhood information (among many other things). This ultimately adds tremendous value to consumers and helps them make smarter decisions about their next real estate move. More and more businesses who are the holders of this private information are understanding that aggregation is increasingly important to the viability of their business. Rather than fight aggregation, embrace it and work with it. Resistance could be crippling.

Another key and I would argue bigger game changer, is the use of tools such as Google and Windows Live by businesses in the hiring process. No longer is it a process of inviting the candidate in for an interview based off of their qualifications, but instead, step one of the interview has moved online: doing a quick background check on Google or Windows Live by browsing through the first 10 pages of results, reading through candidate blogs, browsing through their Myspace and Facebook profile, looking at the pictures they post online.

This is somewhat of a scary predicament for those younger individuals in their teens and younger twenties, going on Myspace and blogging about their wild weekend adventures and posting compromising pictures of themselves. Eventually, we are going to arrive at a time when these individuals realize the consequences of putting too much of this information online, especially if it spreads and is not contained in one profile that can simply be deleted or changed.

To argue the other side, employers need to understand that hiring standards must change. A candidate shouldn’t be counted out simply because they like to party on the weekends. If employers simply overlook these individuals, they could back themselves into a bad situation, hurting for the more creative employees/future leaders.

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