Instant Messaging at Work may be Monitored!

If you like to IM while working, a lot of employers are starting to log your messages. What you have to understand is that anything you do on your company computer at work is the property of your employer. They want to log your IM’s is for a variety of reasons. Employers are interested in knowing if employees are giving away trade secrets, harassing co-workers or violating non-compete agreements to name a few. Please visit this article to learn more.

My thoughts on this are simple. Employers hire you to do a very specific job. If you have IM access, it can be a great tool in conjunction with your job. The issue to me isn’t some of the bad things you can do with IM’s to hurt your company’s image and profitability (my personal philosophy has always been if you have these tendencies in you, nothing will stop you). For me, it is simply one more distraction or gateway to have to the outside world that takes away 100% commitment to your position. Talking to your college friends all day may be fun, but will never get you ahead in the real world. Successful professionals never have time to just chat!

Cleaning Up Your Online Image…including MySpace! Your job may depend on it!

Employers and co-workers are using the internet to find out things that you may not even realize are online about you! Have you Googled your name? What are the results? Did you ever take down those college fraternity pictures that may not have shown you in the best light? Is your MySpace account in need of image repair? Please read this article to find out about the challenges of restoring a good online image.

Here are some things you have to consider when cleaning up your online image:

1) Getting any image of you out of Google/Yahoo/AOL image search engines.
2) Getting a video off YouTube posted by a friend you never talk to anymore.
3) If you have a MySpace account, make it confidential.
4) If you have a Blog that is extremely personal, make it confidential.
5) Change that disturbing email address that was probably “cute” when you created it, but very unprofessional in the real employment world.

Believe it or not, employers and co-workers are using this information to draw an impression about you, right or wrong. You can do something about that!