Before We Get Started…
I want to get one thing straight.
Despite all the news frenzy and political posturing, when it comes to privacy: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter; they are not the bad guys!
If you understood the extent of all our technical capabilities, and saw the hunger with which many entities demand your data – you would thank the tech giants for their privacy policies and the way they have protected our data so far.
Yes, they may have made mistakes. But by and large, they have not been malicious.
And make no mistake… They have drawn a line in the sand which keeps your data both private and impersonal.
Sure, an advertiser might be able to show you jersey ads because you happen to be a fan. Or another might try to sell you honeymoon packages because you say you are engaged.
But that’s all they can do. (And arguably, that’s not all that bad as you may see an offer you actually like).
What matters is, even when people can reach you, they don’t know who you are.
They CAN’T see your name. They CAN’T see your address, or even an email address. And they have no way of learning anything else about you unless you engage with the ad.
In other words, they can reach you. But they cannot surveil you.
And that is a great policy. So much so that we really should thank our tech giants for it, and support them for protecting our privacy…
…and I say this because, as I will explain throughout the rest of this document, there are many forces and organisations who would love to learn soooo much more about us…
And that includes your average employer.
Let’s Talk About Your Future
To have a successful career…
In fact, to even start a successful career… You must understand how any public information about you can and will be used against you.
It will be used against you by your rivals. It will be used against you by your enemies. And it will be used against you by those who seek to control you.
Unfortunately, that last group, also includes your employers.
This is why…
You Must Learn To Maintain Your Privacy
While a stranger or an advertiser cannot learn anything about you through social media, people who know your name can!
That means, any employer you apply to work with, do work with, as well as any colleague you work with, can learn a lot about you simply by checking your profiles out.
This is precisely why, you need to learn how to maintain your privacy.
Otherwise, you have no way of protecting yourself against the biases and prejudices of other humans.
And remember: If you want to prosper, you have to work with these other humans with weird biases and prejudices.
To help you with this task, by giving you the right perspective, as well as the right tools to deal with our technologically disrupted landscape, we created this new free “trail” on our website.
What Is a Career Insiders Trail?
A trail is a sequence of videos and articles we curate to teach you about an important concept. The links on a trail are meant to be watched or read in order – just as if you were walking through a trail.
By taking a trail, you’ll not only gain a comprehensive understanding of the subject at hand, but you’ll also do it at a much faster rate than if you were to learn it out of sequence.
We have many trails on our member archive, which are intended to give you the fastest and most effective crash courses on important subjects that help you get high-value jobs, boost your salary or get you rapidly promoted. These are accessible to students who have our publications or those who have attended our events.
But, because employer surveillance is so sinister, and because we’ve recently encountered so many people, especially young people who have shot themselves in the foot and mangled their future due to their social media lives… We decided to make our trail on employer surveillance public.
Bookmark this page. Watch all the videos. More will be posted in the upcoming weeks.
And as always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments.
Before we being, lets start with hearing a sane position:
Now… Let’s understand the state if peak surveillance today. This is where things are going in the corporate world.
And if you think this type of surveillance isn’t problematic, take a look at this: China is banning people with low “social credit” from rail and air travel!
Then contemplate how deep it can go with advances in technology, and imagine the future we are heading towards:
Then: watch this. See how these “brain wave hats” to measure fatigue may become an issue even at home:
Then: Remember how employers asking for Facebook passwords were becoming an issue a few years back. Luckily some states have already legislated protections against it. (Also keep in mind, it’s against Facebook’s Terms of Service to share your password, so if you run into an issue, remember that as a defence):
But keep in mind that it’s irrelevant whether they have access to your private information. Your public information is more than enough to cause you trouble – if you don’t know what you are doing.
91% of US employers already – voluntarily – report that they have visited a candidate’s profile on social networks[1] and 69% reported that they rejected applicants based on what they saw![2]
That’s only the tip of the iceberg… After all humans are social creatures. And we love watching each other. And we do it much more if we are paying one another.
Here’s another interesting development. If you thought having an phone that belongs to your employer was bad enough…
Of course all of this can be understood within the context of what some like to call “surveillance capitalism”. And despite our unequivocal opposition to the “Karl Marx of our time” (or any time for that matter), the following video is worth watching:
Of course, to be perfectly clear, we are NOT advocating a disconnect from technology or trying to exist on the internet without Google search. On the contrary, we advocate the use of technology to it’s maximum capacity. The future is not in Amish like villages riding bogeys and avoiding the internet.
We are children of the internet. And through the internet we connect, we learn, and we grow.
What matters is that you develop awareness of HOW your data is used, and that you be conscious of the data you project in to the world. What matters is that you use the internet to serve your needs, presenting you in the way you want to be seen, and helping you form the relationships you want to have.
Don’t be the product. Be the user.
For the Star Trek fans, remember the Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #59: “Free advice is seldom cheap”. In this regard, if there is ONE thing you should take away from this trail, it is that you should disdain the free and become a patron that other people serve.
Remember: a free video is advertisement. A free lecture is sales. A free article is branding. And a free search engine, or a free social network, or a free app; these are all data mining operations.
Smart people pay for the things they want while freeloaders get exploited. It’s the way it has always been, and it’s the way it will always be…
If there are two things you should take away: You should ALWAYS be on the job market, constantly generating new options so that when an employer asks for you do to something you don’t want, you can say no, negotiate, and push comes to shove – walk away.
Learn to attract jobs, and upgrade your pay grade.
Additional Links & Resources:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/14/is-your-boss-secretly-or-not-so-secretly-watching-you
References
[1] “Job Hunters: How To Use Google As Your Resume” – Forbes.com
[2]: 70% of employers are snooping candidates’ social media profiles – careerbuilder.com.