4.2: Tools you should be using

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Page ID: 305676

Mark Briggs
University of South Florida

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Vanity searching: If you’re in a position to hire others, you have almost certainly added Google and Yahoo! to the screening process. Conducting a Web search of a prospective job candidate is a common step in the early sorting process and the results can be revealing. A 2006 survey conducted by CareerBuilder found that, of hiring managers who used Web searches to research job candidates, 51 percent have eliminated a candidate based on what they found. If they searched a social networking site like MySpace or Facebook, the results were more ominous: 63 percent did not hire the person based on what they found.1

What does this mean for you? Before you apply for a new job, do some vanity searching in both Google and Yahoo! Make sure there aren’t any compromising photos or inappropriate material. And if you’re a recent college grad, better check MySpace and Facebook, too. Just because you’ve never posted a picture of some wild times at a party doesn’t mean that no one else has. (If you find something, hopefully you can contact the “friend” who posted it and ask that it be removed.)

Flash drives and memory cards: Remember floppy disks? You probably have a stack of them at home or work, yet you never use them anymore. That’s because they hold such a small amount of data — 1.4MB — that they’re just not practical. Think about it this way: A floppy disk could hold one, maybe two, digital photos.

Today’s digital landscape relies on small devices with huge amounts of storage. USB flash drives (for text) and memory cards like compact flash (CF) or secure digital (SD) (for digital photos or added game memory) can store hundreds or thousands of megabytes. And, like most technology, the prices on these devices have dropped precipitously since they hit the mainstream. A 1GB flash drive cost as much as $100 in 2004. In 2006, the same drive cost as little as $19. As a result, as many as 150 million flash drives were expected to be sold in 2006.

A 256MB flash drive; 256MB and 512MB Compact Flash (CF) cards.

What does this mean for you? If you work with text, you can feasibly back up all your documents on a flash drive every time you log off your computer. It’s quick and easy and, as the saying goes, there are two kinds of computer users: Those who back up their data, and those who will.

Another useful application for flash drives is the transfer of large files. If you have photos or a honkin’ PDF that you want to send to someone in the newsroom, give the e-mail server a rest and copy it to a flash drive. The recipient can download it in a few seconds and your IT department will thank you for not clogging the server with several MBs of an attachment.

Flash drives have a bright future, too. In September 2006, the USB Flash Drive Alliance announced it will endorse a new generation of “smart” drives that will allow users to run active programs from flash drives. So in addition to document and image storage, the new flash drives will have your Web browser with all your bookmarks, your instant messaging program with all your buddies, your games and more, all encrypted to keep it safe. So wherever you are in the world, you could use any computer and it would be just like using the one at your home or office.

References

CareerBuilder.com Industry Trends, 2006 Surveys: “One in four hiring managers have used Internet search engines to screen job candidates,” Oct. 26, 2006. http://www.careerbuilder.com/Share/ AboutUs/IndustryTrends.aspx?archiveyear=2006

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