HR Recruiter question

[Reynolds531]

For those of you who work in recruiting, I have a question.

Many companies do a web search on employees or potential employees. I keep getting to the third or fourth interview, very happy with how it seems to go. Then I get the inevitable turn down.

So I deep googled myself. I'm John J Doe in Ontario. There is a John D Doe in British Columbia who is not a nice man. He was charged with a serious crime. I'm not him, obviously.

What are the odds this is hurting me? What can I do about it?

[Padonak]

I don't know about Canada, but in the US, there are reputation management companies. They can try to remove negative information online for a fee. If they can't (e.g. it's for somebody else with your name), they can create positive or neutral links for your name to populate the first couple of pages in Google search.

[zygote]

There have been a few letters about this topic on Ask A Manager over the years.

https://www.askamanager.org/2014/06/job-searching-when-you-share-a-name-with-a-porn-star.html
https://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/emailing-my-boyfriends-interviewer-job-searching-when-you-share-a-name-with-a-dominatrix-who-looks-like-you-and-more.html

The main pieces of advice are to use your middle initial, and to build an online presence of your own so it's clear from the google search that you are two different people.

Good luck with your job search. Hopefully it's just been bad luck so far, with another candidate being a better fit for whatever reason, and that your turn will come up soon.

[Johnez]

My employer did a very thorough background check which needed my drivers license, birthday, and social security number. Not sure how things are in Canada, but I'm pretty sure the combination of your name birthday, and ID should separate you from the other guy with your name.

[Unique User]

We do google searches just to make sure nothing is negative, but make very, very sure it is the right person before telling the hiring manager we are removing the candidate from consideration.  I think it has only happened twice in my nine years in recruiting and there was zero doubt they were the same person, i.e. location matched, mug shot matched drivers license photo, unusual full name match.  The different middle initial or location would be enough for us to realize you are a different person.  Considering you have both differences it seems doubtful that is the reason those interviews don't work out.