We Googled You

“We googled you” case study

Fred Westen, the Ceo of Hathaway Jones a luxury apparel is facing a decision regarding his moral beliefs and his business views on hiring. The case study focuses on Fred and his choice to interview and hire, Mimi Brewster, an old friends daughter. She is a very successful and sophisticated Berkley graduate, who is bi lingual and completely qualified for the position to expand the Philadelphia based Hathaway Jones to China. After the first interview, Virginia Flanders, the vice president of human resources proceeded to do a routine Internet background check. What she found was that Mimi had taken part in a non violent but vocal protest group that helped mobilize campaigns against the World Trade Organization. Fred now faces that decision on weather of not he should hire Mimi for the position. The benefits associated with conducting informal background checks include the following. First if I was a hiring manager I would want to weed out the interviewees that have any type of convicted charges against them, even though on all applications it includes a section for you to explain your situation, it is very difficult to find honest people in this world. Searching the Internet can give you a heads up on peoples honesty during interviews. Secondly, like the case study says it is almost a sure thing to find some type of dirt on any one person. If you search someone and only find minimal offenses of maybe not anything on them that would deter them from being a positive employee, you can be reassured during the interview that this person could be a good asset to your team. Often times things that you find on the Internet about people are not really what they seem. Like in the case with Mimi Brewster, she was at a very liberal university and was part of an organization that she felt strongly towards. She was vocal in something that she believed in and even though some thought of this as a negative attribute, it shows her personality to be