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We have a new website design here. For some reason our old one just went kaput when Blogger moved over to a new design system. Sorry about any problems you may have been having, but hopefully they're all fixed now. It should be clean and easy to navigate and, hopefully, easy to read as well. Let Jennifer or myself know if you're still having any issues.

Speaking of websites, they can be a great way, for a candidate of getting your name out there on the internet. Showing that you have designed a website (and maybe putting some of your interests on there) can be a living resume out there on the internet. When I Googled "Jennifer Loftus", one of the hits that came back was her website she made in 2006. One of my friends was able to build a website which is a very cool online portfolio of her work. When done right, a website can be a great tool for a job seeker and a great way to have a Google search come back with more than a Facebook or LinkedIn profile.

But done poorly, a website can be a bad thing for a candidate to have out there. Like Facebook, Twitter or MySpace profiles should not have compromising pictures or text, so shouldn't a personal website. I recently heard from a friend that they were in the middle of the interview process with a candidate when they decided to Google their name. The result returned a website. One section on the website was pictures full of the candidate partying. Another had "life goals", which, while sounding promising, had such lofty goals as "partying with P. Diddy" and "sleeping with a celebrity". Not exactly the type of information that gets you hired.

It can be a good idea to make a personal website, but as everything you put out there on the World Wide Web, make sure it's appropriate and professional. You never know who will see it someday.

We start out on this Wednesday with an interesting post from Fistful of Talent which talks about the sad state we've gotten to in job offers when verbal agreements aren't enough. While the author of the post first laments that candidates demand offers in writing but after more research, turns the table on those doing the hiring:

But, maybe, more importantly... why have so many job seekers been jerked around when it comes to employment offers that they have to be so overly cautious? I mean for those of you making offers out there, what the heck are you guys doing?

I agree with Jessica. If you're going to offer a job to someone verbally, make sure that it exists and there's money in the budget to pay for it. It makes things much more difficult for everyone else when candidates can't trust hiring companies at their words.

Next, from Yahoo! News via Reuters the question was put out to America if you should Facebook friend your boss and America said no (H/T Wendy*)."A survey released on Thursday found that 56 percent of Americans say it is irresponsible to be friends with a boss and 62 percent say it is wrong to be friends with an employee." The interesting part of the study is that more and more, people are feeling comfortable saying that while accessing social media/networking at work is OK, doing things like updating statuses uploading pictures, tweeting, or watching online videos are becoming less acceptable to people. Hopefully studies like this will allow more companies to allow access to social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter--and have confidence that the employees will act responsibly.

*Side Note: Wendy happens to be my boss...and she sent this to me--do you think she's hinting at something?

We start off here on our Thursday with an article from Yahoo! and Forbes on Office Etiquette Essentials (H/T Wendy). This is not good news:

Christine Pearson, professor of management at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. and coauthor of The Cost of Bad Behavior, says 96% of Americans report experiencing rudeness at work, and 48% say they are treated uncivilly at least once a week.

This kind of manners meltdown can have a direct effect on the bottom line. According to surveys conducted by Pearson and her colleagues, 48% of poorly treated employees have intentionally decreased their productivity and 12% say the boorish behavior compelled them to quit. Workplace rudeness costs employers an average of $50,000 per worker. "There are very high costs associated with even seemingly inconsequential inconsiderate words and actions," adds Pearson.

Ouch

Next comes from itWorldCanada and says that using social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook as talent sourcing tools may open up a company to potential legal repercussions.

Lastly, from Business Insurance, a court ruling from Florida that says that illegal immigrants are due workers comp benefits (H/T Jennifer)

The Lede from The New York Times had this as a title: "Depressed Woman Appears Happy on Facebook, Trouble Ensues."  When you read through the story (first reported from CBC News), it's another lesson to employees to watch what you post on sites like Facebook:

A 29-year-old Canadian woman who says she’s too depressed to do her job claims that her employer’s insurance company stopped paying her disability benefits because she posted some photographs of herself on Facebook in which she appeared to be happy.

Nathalie Blanchard, who has been on sick leave from an IBM office in Quebec since “she was diagnosed with major depression” 18 months ago, called her employer’s insurance company, Manulife, to ask why she had stopped receiving her monthly check. Ms. Blanchard says that an insurance agent informed her that photographs she had posted on her Facebook account — showing her apparently enjoying a Chippendales show, her birthday party and a beach vacation — proved that she was not depressed

Now I can't see how this can stand (but then again I don't know the Canadian court system that well). I'm not sure an insurance agent is qualified to tell if a woman is depressed or not based on photos she posted on Facebook. And if she was enjoying Chippendales, her birthday and a beach vacation, isn't she a normal human being. Let's just say things got worse for Blanchard after this...

[Her lawyer, Tom Lavin] told The Gazette, a Montreal newspaper, that his client’s mortgage insurance was cut off because someone alerted her financial institution to the supposedly damning Facebook photos. “That forced her to sell her house because she can’t afford to pay her mortgage,” Mr. Lavin told The Gazette, “her credit has gone down the tubes and her reputation has been damaged. She’s not having a good time.”

If she wasn't depressed before...Ouch.

We now have a blog account on Twitter! Follow us @astronworldofhr (and follow Jennifer @astronsolutions)

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We're all over the social networking!

We continue to move further and further into the social networking arena...

Become a fan of our blog on Facebook: click here

Greetings from Richmond, VA...

Livemint.com (from the Wall Street Journal) tells us what Facebook has to do with Human Resources: click here

HR Marketer Blog has some information on how Google rocks and the rolling of HR professionals and suppliers into one community: click here

Lastly, this Human Resources blog says that no matter what media is out there, Human Resources is about the people: click here