If you are about to embark on a job search, consider whether you might need to clean up your online act.
Of course, with cached sites and historical searches, you really can’t entirely undo your past posts. But take a close look at your publicly accessible information and make sure it’s ready for prime time.
Also, mind those privacy settings. If you have information or material you want to leave up but don’t want employers to see, at least put it behind a privacy wall.
Limit your privacy settings so that only your approved friends can see it. If others have posted photos that might paint you in a negative light, ask the poster to remove it. If that doesn’t work, you can at least untag yourself in any photos that you don’t want potential employers to stumble across.
Finally, if you’ve left an unfortunate digital trail, be ready with an explanation. Even if you are able to take down your original indiscrete post, it may have been reproduced or quoted elsewhere, others may have commented on it, or it may simply live on forever in the digital wayback machine.
In this situation, the best you can do is to try to minimize its impact by having an explanation (of your youthful indiscretions and your changed ways, for example) queued up if you need it.
If you decide to go forward with a workplace claim against your employer, make sure you meet your legal deadlines.
The law sets time limits (often called “statutes of limitations”) for filing certain types of claims or lawsuits, ranging from several weeks to several years. If one of these deadlines applies to your case, you will have to think sooner rather than later about whether to go to court.
You might want to consult with a lawyer about your problem to figure out how strong your claims are, whether any filing deadlines apply to your dispute, and what you might expect to gain or lose if you file a lawsuit.
David Payab, Esq. from The Law Offices of Payab & Associates can be reached @ (818) 918-5522 or online.
