If you "pre-screen" applicants using Google, or any search engine at all, please read this.
So many job applications and application websites make no–nonsense statements about "If you do not fully and accurately disclose information about your criminal conviction history, you will not be hired or contacted for an interview!" or some version of that. There is no problem with that, except when the company making that statement doesn't do the proper work, cutting steps to cut costs.
There is no secret that some companies pre–screen applicants using Google, the ethics are arguable, especially if the results of a search are used to outright deny an applicant an interview without further investigation or effort.
If I am applying for a job, feel free to perform a proper background check, I have nothing to hide. All you'll find are two traffic tickets, because thats all there is to find!
Google, however, will tell you a different story.
And unfortunately for me, one particular St. Petersburg Times article Google brings up ranks higher than my resume, higher than my portfolio, and it has absolutely nothing to do with ME . A different person with the same first and last name born just months before me. A frustrating coincidence, to say the least.
I have never stepped foot in the state of Florida, nor have I ever lived in Brooklyn, NY. To avoid further pushing the St. Petersburg Times article to the top of the list, I will not link to it here, or repeat any additional information, it has done my job search enough damage as it is.
If you insist on Googling me as a pre-screening measure, at the very least please Google my full name so that you know the results you're bringing up are actually involving me…