Microsoft Office 2010 Professional blog our-online

By Eric Stutzman Lately Janelle talked about MySpace / Facebook and if using them will "hurt your dreams of landing an excellent profession at Microsoft..." Within this Priya asked "I'm also interested in knowing will my blog posts relating to other companies products/services hurt my chances with Microsoft? In other words, if I had written blog post in praise of Google's certain services will it hurt my MSFT potential?” Well this got me thinking a bit about my own online presence. In short I would say that praising another company on a blog, customer comment page or anything else will not have any affect over your potentially becoming a Microsoft employee. I know many have heard the rumors that iPods are banned from campus and that certain technologies are blocked from use on campus and well.... the world needs its myths now doesn't it. I can assure you that you will see MANY iPods in use on campus and that all search engines, desktop search apps and many other non-Microsoft technologies are used by our employees. Let's face it in the developer world, especially here at Microsoft, innovation and creativity thrives from competition. Not as well mention that we love our geek toys/apps as much as the rest of the world,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional! While I am fairly new to JobsBlog (from a contributors point of view) I certainly am not new to online communities be it message boards, other blogs and the likes of Myspace; where the music community is one of my favorite haunts. Now I have seen a fair share of personal sites that, while I wouldn't want them attached to candidates resumes and in front of Hiring Managers, they wouldn't be a show stopper (most of them anyways). I have been an avid online gamer since 95/96 and I even spent a couple years around that time at a company whose browser product was once known as Mosaic. ;) The beauty of the online communities is the online persona and the anonymity that it brings us. Now I am not saying this gives you carte blanche to say whatever, wherever; not at all! I am simply saying that most of the folks that I engage with in these communities know me as a mandolin player or an online game competitor and not Eric the Recruiter from Microsoft. I also post by some common sense guidelines; do not post when angry, do not gloat - as well much ;) - about your victories and do not post anything that you wouldn't share with mom! I think that by following a set of guidelines like this there isn't a lot of room for negative splash back from your online presence and its effect on your potential Microsoft Employee status is null. ~Eric