An online reputation is a double-edged sword. As we prepare to enter the job market, teachers and counselors urge us to craft an online persona that will entice employers. You don’t need a LinkedIn account to get hired, but it doesn’t hurt, our advisors tell us. And we have been warned since high school to clean up our Facebook profiles. Photos that capture bacchanalian flurries of red plastic cups will not impress prospective employers, we hear.
Who are these “employers,” we might wonder — this vague ominous group that looks on reckless college students with parental disapproval? One thing seems certain, in the mind of the job-hungry undergraduate: in a squeezed labor market, a student’s only chance at avoiding a life of poverty is a squeaky-clean online presence.
The influence of social-networking tools such as LinkedIn on students’ job prospects is no doubt overstated. A positive online presence extends your job opportunities to the degree that companies that otherwise wouldn’t become aware of you take notice of your abilities. But a LinkedIn profile is not a guarantee of employment. And a student with a less-than-angelic Facebook profile is not condemned to pauperism. A well-crafted online persona is no more than a gloss on a student’s job-seeking pursuits. It shows that she is following the unspoken rules of self-presentation.
A more substantive threat to job prospects — and to online reputations more generally — comes from a different corner of the Web. For students who have been arrested, a sloppy Facebook profile is the least of their worries. The recent advent of for-profit mug shot websites threatens to box some students out of the job market.
A mug shot merely records an arrest. Many people photographed for mug shots later have charges against them dropped, or are exonerated of wrongdoing in court. But their images linger online nonetheless.
For-profit mug shot websites threaten to have a disproportionate impact on college students for two reasons. First, college students, and young people more broadly, are likely to take risks. Many college students drink underage. Others do recreational drugs. Such activities — which certain students in certain social circles view as harmless — can lead to a damaging online mug shot. Second, college students are preparing to enter the workforce for the first time. A mug shot of a 40-year-old who is already in an established line of work could have negative effects, but if the arrest does not lead to a conviction, and the worker’s job performance is strong, the undesired photograph is unlikely to be a career-ender. A mug shot of a 20-year-old, in contrast, could lead firms to remove the candidate from consideration. In addition, college students — as opposed to young people more broadly — are more likely to search for white-collar jobs in companies that would care about an online mug shot.
For-profit mug shot websites emerged in 2010 with Florida.arrests.org. In the last three years, about 80 such websites have been created. These websites pull mug shots from local law enforcement agencies and post them online. They then charge between $30 and $400 to remove the picture. The fees for photo removal mean that only the people who can afford to pay up are spared embarrassment and potential negative consequences. JustMugShots.com has posted approximately 16.8 million mug shots, according to The New York Times.
Getting arrested has never been good. But with online mug shots, an arrest can cut a career short before it starts. Today’s labor market is competitive, and firms typically Google prospective employees. A student with, say, a marijuana arrest might seem like a risky hire. Such a student would be tarnished in the eyes of an employer — even if she were exonerated in the eyes of the law. Her youthful mistake could have far-reaching implications.
Websites like JustMugShots.com are legal because mug shots are public records. But they are unsavory nonetheless. Some hope is on the horizon. Google is currently working to demote mug shot images in search results, and MasterCard, American Express, Discover and PayPal are in the process of terminating their contracts with mug shot websites. Yet as things stand, the stakes for getting arrested are higher than they have been in generations — especially for job-seeking college students.
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