Don't Blog If You're Looking For A Job (via The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Here's an interesting (and cautionary) tale from the Chronicle of Higher Education. If you're an academic searching for a job, it's best to control the information you give prospective employers.

What is it with job seekers who also write blogs? Our recent faculty search at Quaint Old College resulted in a number of bloggers among our semifinalists. Those candidates looked good enough on paper to merit a phone interview, after which they were still being seriously considered for an on-campus interview.

That's when the committee took a look at their online activity.

In some cases, a Google search of the candidate's name turned up his or her blog. Other candidates told us about their Web site, even making sure we had the URL so we wouldn't fail to find it. In one case, a candidate had mentioned it in the cover letter. We felt compelled to follow up in each of those instances, and it turned out to be every bit as eye-opening as a train wreck.

Click here for the full story.

There's a quote that's been attributed to a number of people that goes, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

This is one reason that I plan on blogging as "The Unknown Professor" for some time. Yeah, I'm wimping out, but discretion is the better part and all than. I'm not looking for a job at present, but you never know, and you never know who might get their boxers in a bunch over something I've written.

Hat tip to Joanne Jacobs for the link (which she got from Discriminations).

Update #1: Here's a link to the Metafilter discussion on the topic (courtesy of Ann Althouse).

Update #2: Ancrene Wiseass has a veritable linkfest to other bloggers' comments on this story.

Other blog posts about Tribblegate include that of our favorite e-saloniste, BitchPhD, as well as those at ABD: AlmostBloodyDone; Acephalous (who quoted me and gave me a trackback--sexy!); Badgering; Blogenspiel; The Chutry Experiment; Colin vs. Blog; Daniel W. Drezner; Financial Rounds; Frog in a Well; Information Overlord; Jess's Journal; Lawyers, Guns, and Money; The Little Professor; OneMan'sOpinion.org; Planned Obsolescence; Profgrrrrl; Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast; So, Anyway . . . ; and Yellow Dog.

I wish I had the time (or energy) to do that much linking. But, thanks to the miracle of the blogoshpere, I don't have to.