Ahh, transparency: A great thing because everyone has access to your stuff. And, a nasty thing because, well, everyone has access to your stuff.
Case in point: Meet missAdriane, who, from her tweets, says she’s a CareerBuilder sales person based out of Chicago, and whose bio says “I’m basically the most awesome person ever, and modesty is my best quality.“ Awesome, indeed! Someone you’d like to buy a job posting from, right?
Maybe not. Note a tweet dated yesterday, saying “people really annoy me… especially those i’m trying to get to buy stuff…” And it doesn’t end there. Checkout a few more of her gems:
Ready to buy something from “missAdriane”? Yeah, me neither.
The funnier thing, though, is CareerBuilder recently let a lot of sales people go and just cut a bunch of people’s salaries. This is what they kept around? Yikes!
Update: No surprise. The Twitter account looks to be deleted. Fortunately, Google’s cache can take us back in time.
Popularity: unranked [?]
April 29th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Good to know these are the people that call me constantly to buy their products even though we decided long ago to put our money elsewhere. This sums up the attitude they have about their clients in my opinion.
And one of the seven reps that calls me always talks about something they have that scours blogs and message boards to “provide a clear picture of a candidate” to see if they would be a good fit for my company based on their online activity. I wonder, would she pass the test? Knowing what I know about the culture at CareerBuilder, especially after reading the posts on Cheezhead, I’m guessing she’s just their type . . .
April 29th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
This is just another example of the poor and often appalling customer service that is out there. I own a small media buying agency and we do a lot of Career Builder advertising for clients. I have had some disagreements with Career Builder staff on issues in the past, but nothing remotely like what is happening with this employee.
The unemployment rate is too high for this individual to have this job. Career Builder should fire this individual and give it to someone that is probably more capable and grateful for the job!
April 30th, 2009 at 1:19 am
It seems that this girl has no clue that only 19 followers on twitter can mean a million opportunities to be seen/read about. A good lesson to the rest of us, watch what you say. A good rule of thumb “if you don’t have something nice/positive to say, don’t say anything”. This rule especially applies when your career is at stake!
April 30th, 2009 at 2:28 am
DUMB. Absoulty embarssing for CareerBuilder. She person needs to take the walk of shame on Thursday with her belongings, her cigs, and not collect employment
April 30th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Joel makes an excellent point about the fact that CB has elected to cut people’s salaries in an effort to refrain from additional layoffs. However, the company has lots of dead weight like this Miss Adriane twit and Erik that disparage the company by these types of behaviors as well as conistent under-performance. Meanwhile, lots of the top producers are jumping ship. A consequence of cutting salaries is it tends to alienate people who are consistenly performing above expectations. Even in this difficult job market, top performers have several alternatives. You could argue that a company doesn’t really want top performers that care only about themselves – so much so that they jump ship because they have to sacrifice for the greater good. However, when the greater good involves the subsidization of a derth of poor performers, than those top performers’ complaints are justified; as is their decision to pursue other opportunities outside said companies.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Correction.. Rocky Trump says….Yo Adriane…Your Fired..
April 30th, 2009 at 7:18 am
There is an upside here…targeted ads. The last twit is a great places for a targeted ad, “New Twitter Teeth Whitening gum removes those stuburn coffee and smoking stains”
April 30th, 2009 at 8:21 am
That why every one need 2 twitters, one for work and one for your other life :-)
April 30th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Looks like Miss Adriane has killed her twitter presence.
This sort of activity can go both ways, and companies are stupid if they don’t realize it. For everyone who can build your employment brand through their social web activity, there’s someone who can tear it down. You prevent this not by being draconian about what people can and can’t do online, but by making your employees happy enough that the good voices outweigh the bad ones.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Wow, not a smart move on her part. I think anyone in sales knows the frustration of waiting on a contract, but in this economoy I wouldn’t be bashing my clients or bragging about wasting my day.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Classic
April 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I assure you all that this is not a common attitude at CB and I hate to see comments like this reflected on myself and my fellow associates. For anyone out there who has had sales experience, you must know that the anticipation of a sale can sometimes be exciting and nerveracking, but this was very unprofessional. I know first hand that after the layoffs and paycuts, we have been left with an extremely talented and thoughtful core of conustants.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Awesome move Adriane! Way to make the rest of us look bad who legitimatly bust our rear-ends on a daily basis to keep this company running.
Hope all is well in Chicago and have a cigarette for me,
Sincerly,
CB Person
April 30th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I want to respond to the numerous disparaging comments not only about CareerBuilder but also about the reps themselves that work here. I have been at CareerBuilder for over 2 years now and during that time I have heard both professionalism and customer service a’plenty. That there are a number of complaints out there against us goes without saying and I would challenge any company of our size to do business without problems arising, both customer service and infrastructure issues. Business happens. Saying that things like this won’t happen is putting blinders on. But as always, it is how a company deals with these mistakes that makes them a company of reputation. I promise you that the overall philosophy at CareerBuilder is to help the staffing/recruiting world grow and improve. Not what you see here.
On the other hand I would like to thank Adrienne for pointing out how excellent the viral potential is with such social networks. Anyone who doubted their immense reach should be well silenced by now!
April 30th, 2009 at 11:16 am
This is a great comment on the power of social media. This person had about 19 followers and had made 48 updates of a personal nature. I would guess the 19 peeps following her are her friends. She did make some really stupid comments about her job and that was a big mistake. Of course, it seems everyone on this blog just wants to bash the big three boards and CB especially. For HR people we sure are judgmental without all the facts, huh? You say she should lose her job…maybe, but that is for the CB management to decide and not the mob here!
Great job by Cheezhead in exploiting one individual person to drive some traffic and sensationalize this post. Was her losing her job worth everyone’s entertainment. What about this post is really relevant in relation to if Careerbuilder is a good site and drives good candidates to employers. Maybe the Monster, CB, Hotjobs and Job Fox employees should start scouring the internet for embarrassing mistakes Joel has made. This is not news. This is Joel creating news at the cost of someone else’s expense.
Joel- use your bully pulpit to do something good for a change instead of inciting you “mob” against the Big 3 boards.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:30 am
As a former CB rep we were taught to sell as much product to clients no matter if they needed it or not. As much as this rep is to blame for being ignorant, that is the culture at CB. Sell, sell, sell.
It’s amazing that CB is now trying to get into the consultancy business when they have had their own interests in mind for so long and constantly screw over customers and other business partners.
CB is constantly referred to as “the necessary evil” with all of the new tools today they are no longer “necessary” they are just “EVIL.”
Great article Cheezhead!
April 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am
That is terrible! I always knew that careerbuilder rep who is constantly barraging me with phone calls had a fake attitude just like this lady over there just to try to get me suckered into paying a premium to buy their products. I usually prefer the local job boards anyway, but now I know I won’t be buying from careerbuilder any time soon.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
You tell them Casey. It’s time to wake up and see what CB is truly about. There are other resources out there that will give you the same if not better results and truly partner with your company. Now is the time to start opening up to new ideas. It will pay off in the long-term.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Cheezhead has become as relevant as perezhilton.com. I would like to hear about some of the jobs that former Big 3 job board reps now hold.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
She’s been fired.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Yet another case of mixing your “personal brand” with your “company/professional brand”. Use Myspace/Facebook for personal as you can set who can see what you have and vent there. Use Twitter for professional branding since it can be viewed by anybody and everybody!
Watch what you say on the internet – Its serious business!
April 30th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
She is fired. What an idiot – HR is talking about/with her right now.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Honestly, is this really news to anyone? CB hires kids right out of college for a job that is sometimes at its best, nearly impossible.
Should the girl have used her head more? Yea of course, she was stupid for putting that out there.
Should anyone who has worked at or with CB be surprised? Nope. The job really isnt all that its cracked up to be, and while there are both good and great leaders in the company, my guess is that this girl worked for Pete Jansons – because only he could have been so blind as to allow her to stay after the layoffs.
Look – the U250 or whatever the hell its called, SUCKS. I mean it really does, I did the job. If you’re lucky you get promoted to another unit and actually learn how to sell. Pete just wants phone jockeys. And that’s fine, but if thats all he’s going for, then he has to expect this sort of thing to happen.
The fault on this one lies both with the girl and management. The girl should get the blame for putting something up there that wasnt for public consumption, and Pete and management for creating a culture where employees felt their value was diminished.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I appalled by this post. I am a CB employee as well… and can definitely empathize with the frustrations that Adriane voiced on Twitter, granted… I didn’t air my “dirty laundry” on a highly public forum.
I knew Adriane personally, she was a truly nice person and a good rep. She had a genuine concern for her clients and prospects, and a real passion for this job- which is sort of rare in a very VERY stressful sales environment that can make the most stalwart of salesmen pretty depressed.
I think that her rights to free speech and privacy have been violated. She has lost her job.. and, if I were her… I’d be on the phone to my lawyer right now. This is defamation Mr. Cheezman, and even if it weren’t… how can you sleep at night knowing that you just made someone else a statistic in the growing unemployment crisis.
This was uncalled for. She’s a real person, not just some sensational figure to be ridiculed. Get some humanity, people.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Congrats Joel! You used your more mature and superior knowledge of the internet to use your bully pulpit to have someone fired from their job. As “Shame on you all” said; “She’s a real person, not just some sensational figure to be ridiculed.”
This was a front line sales person doing the grunt work that management asked her to do. She was not a CEO like Rob McGovern or Sal who are paid more then enough and are public figures that can take criticism. This person was tweeting to her friends some of her daily frustrations. Granted, it was a big mistake and poor judgment, but it would have done completely unnoticed by the readers of this blog, CB management and the recruitment world in general if it wasn’t for Big Joel Cheezman (The perez hilton of the HR world)and his constant searching for ways to unjustly criticize the big 3.
Really, your a bully Joel. If you wanted to make a point that CB made poor staffing decisions then can you do so without having to publicly humiliate an entry level salesperson and cost them their job!
April 30th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I think you need to read up on your rights, you have every right to say whatever you want, and your company has every right to hire or fire you based on what you may or may not say.
She posted on a public forum and identified herself as a CB employee and talked down to her clients. She represented CB terribly and if she has been fired I hope she learns from her mistakes and in the future is a smarter employee
April 30th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Maybe we should judge all of your companies by what one person posts on social media sites.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Seriously? If it is a “stressful sales environment” that the best salesmen are continously pretty depressed, why work there?? If you are unhappy and depressed day in and day out, wouldnt you go find something you want to do? She is a real person, but think before you act……
Everybody makes mistakes, that is how you become better, by learning from them. I hope she does.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
“Shame on all of you”, i am sorry to inform you that her “free speech” rights were not impinged. yes, she can say whatever she wants and yes the employer can determine if they want this person to represent their brand. they are not telling her what to say only that she cannot say it as a representative of their company.
there are two issues i really see with this:
1. the belief that employees have the “right” to say what they want about their employers in a very public forum is ridiculous. do not forget that the internet is in the public domain and, so long as users keep their profiles open, employers currently have the right to use the information provided at their discretion. the free exchange of information is great and i personally am embracing it. that said, i am mature enough to know what is appropriate to write about in a very public forum.
2. while this post brings to light the incredible power this type of medium provides, i question the motives by the author. what do they gain by publishing this information? it doesn’t add credibilty as a journalist. what it actually does is accentuate the notion that bloggers are irresponsible beings with accountability to only themselves. even if you are to say the author is providing commentary on this space, many times in the past they have kept confidential the names of sources, bloggers, etc. to protect them from themselves. this could easily have been done.
i read the blog every day and will continue in the future. please provide real information about the players in this space. this young lady made horrible choices and my guess is would continue doing so in the future. her employer has the ability and responsibility to protect their brand. i am not sure where it is your responsiblity to do so.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Whether she gets fired for this is up to her manager at CB, but honestly, if she wanted to only use Twitter for her 19 contacts of her own personal network, all she needed to do was lock down her profile. Then, Joel (and CB or any of her clients) would not have access to her emotional and irresponsible comments.
I think it’s great that this was posted. Just because the vehicle of delivery was Twitter doesn’t make this a “new issue”. It’s about reputation and how you carry yourself.
As an HR manager and manager, what would I do? I’d have a serious talk to her about her brand, her expectations of her clients and job and her performance. If it’s all aligned, give her a chance to start afresh with a new Twitter name, connect to her clients and represent her company and their tools in a positive way (and make her read Me 2.0). I’d rather have an employee who has learned from her mistake than a new employee who might make the same mistake all over again…
April 30th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Wow, this is the Cheezhead I remember.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
In all honesty, this girl deserves it. Don’t sh*t where you eat. Its plain and simple, if you dont like your job, find a new place to work. Do you go and air your boyfriend / girlfriend issues with the entire world to see? No!
April 30th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
To HR in WA-
Cheezhead started “following” MissAdriane on Twitter for the express purpose of doing this. Her profile WAS set to private. This was predatory, purposeful, and disgraceful.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
[Not to say this persons comments on Twitter are right or wrong..]
You go to any company that has to SELL something to stay alive… [read: most all] And you’ll find that there have 1+ individuals that works in their sales division, has a bad attitude, and has made less-than-smart comments about their clients.
I’ve seen sales people from a number of companies be far worse than this individual, thats for sure. Being crude and venting for attention to your friends about your job is far from a crime, and certainly can’t be used as a judge of her ability to service her clients.
Regardless, a bad idea to post that. Not a reason to judge Careerbuilder.com and their various subsidiaries, however. [If you do; then dont buy any car again, never buy phone service or a cell phone, etc etc. They'll all be companies with a few less-than-stellar individuals in the sales ranks. Good chance that the company you work at has someone you don't consider "the best", as well. Or no?]
April 30th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
That is ok Adriane, I ama former top rep at CB. And that’s exactly it “Former.” I did not like their strategy of forcing products on clients that they didnt need!!!
So much for their core value of Candor, I guess it doesnt exist at Careerbuilder anymore. Please take it out of your values.
Thanks!!!
April 30th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
HR in WA made some very valid points and I agree that missAdriane maybe deserves a second chance. However there is no way CB will give it to her, they are tooo cut throat. She is long gone.
April 30th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
As soon as I saw this story I went to Adriane’s twitter profile. I guarantee you, Anonymous, that her updates were not protected.
Hell, you can see it yourself in the google cache at the end of the post.
She badmouthed her clients and her employer in a public forum. This is like going on Good Morning America and shouting about how your job sucks and you hate your customers.
Make no mistake about it, twitter is as public as that. Moreso. It’s archivable and searchable.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I would just like to mirror what someone already said. Shame on you! Granted she should not have said what she did about the company and especially her clients. I cringe thinking what my customers would be wondering if they were reading this. However, do you seriously have a conscience? I mean, really, do you have any care for anyone except yourself?
In December I had to find out that my job was on the line because of a leak-ed email to this site. YOU ARE A SHARK, and a really un-ethical person. While I never personally knew the girl in question, I believe that if Joel did “friend” her just to get this information, he is a truly nasty character.
Shame on you!
May 1st, 2009 at 1:35 am
Yawn, he did his job. I can’t say I care for him or this blog but hey they do their job. This really isn’t a new thing, a patriot cheerleader was fired for racy pictures on her facebook, a philadelphia eagles employee was fired for making negative comments about the team, and lets not forget the young lady in california who tweeted negative things about cisco and nearly lost her job offer, mark cuban was fined for negative comments about refs etc etc …
As for all this misdirected outrage towards Joel, he didn’t get anybody fired, its not like he made those negative comments, he brought attention to them. Put the blame where it belongs squarely on the twitterer plain and simple. She got herself fired, quite lamely, her comments are pretty tame, no doubt worthy of getting fired but if your going to rip your customers, at least have some profanity laced tirades. Might as well go out with a bang.
The worst part about all this is somebody got fired over twitter, how do you explain that to a potential employer ?
May 1st, 2009 at 1:43 am
This article and the comments are entirely hilarious and I wish there was more of this on Cheezhead. This CB sales gal made many layers of mistakes, the first of which was to take a sales job that she so blatantly did not enjoy.
Those who feel there was some sort of violation of privacy or free speech, as already pointed out, she was posting on Twitter, which is a very public forum, with her comments not set to private. Joel did not even need to “follow” her to see her inane comments. So, no one should ever expect her comments to be private by any means. If you think you need to “follow” someone to see their Twitter posts, or if you think her “followers” must have been her friends, you obviously don’t use Twitter much.
As for free speech, it astounds me how poorly people understand the American right to free speech. The Constitution protects a person in the U.S. only from the government taking action against their speech or expression. There is no constitutional right for the person to receive absolute protection from any and all parties for any and all expression. This was one of Sarah Palin’s many ridiculous mistakes during the campaign, stating journalists were violating her rights.
Further, most employment in the U.S. is at-will. She not only should have been fired for posting idiotic public statements after having identified herself as an employee of CB, she could have been fired for even less of a reason, so long as it wasn’t discriminatory.
Finally, if anyone is a shark, it is the ruthless and disruptive sales and marketing tactics which CareerBuilder seems to have intensified over the past year or so. Shame on CareerBuilder for not listening to their own customers and seeing them only as dumb cows to be milked daily.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:24 am
Joel,
I am very surprized you created this “national enquirer” type of article. The individual made a mistake, a big one but this is not serious news or even funny news.
You pulled a “drudge report” on this woman’s mistake and god forbid she does something to hurt herself. Go ahead and “spin” this anyway you want…tell us “it’s her fault for posting this on the web for everyone to see.”
One day if your kid/s ever make a stupid mistake like this you will realize that the punishment fit the penalty – being fired.
But you turned this into some type of foolish game by targeting an individual putting her picture up and really going to far on marketing her “mistake”.
It is really disappointing that you have sunken this low. And you do owe an apology to your readers to providing everyone access to her picture and words. Granted they were out there and know remain but you should use your knowledge and intelligence for better use than this.
I have a friend at monster and careerbuilder and they are both disgusted only by the fact that you decided to make her mistake into some type of grab for “eyeballs”.
Enough Said.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:49 am
I’m reminded of a poem about tweeting birds … and advice for worms:
Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you’re a bird, be an early early bird-
But if you’re a worm, sleep late.
by Shel Silverstein
May 1st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Ellis, I agree. To refuse to support an organization with 2000+ employees globally based on a couple of distasteful “tweets” is absurd. People make poor judgment calls daily, and we’d all be naked, homeless, and starving if we didn’t have to do business with people who goof up. If you don’t like the sales rep you work with, request to work with someone else (duh…).
Further, having once served happily in the “phone jockey” ranks at CB, I’d like to step in and defend this group. Mainly comprised of entry levels, they are all cutting their teeth in the wild and crazy world of sales at a time when selling ANYTHING is a challenge. They are not working in a sweat shop, the management staff are not slave drivers, and the reps are certainly not *instructed* to abandon all ethical business practices and push unwanted products on clients. The simple fact is that it takes a special knack for selling, and some of us just don’t have it. The ’some of us that just don’t have it’ category likely includes a few of the folks who have posted in reply to this article.
Cut this girl some slack, people. I’ve had countless less-than-favorable experiences with the foot- soldier- rank employees of all kinds of companies whose goods and services I can’t afford to do without.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:27 pm
*I personally know this girl and she is this stupid in real life. Just be glad that you are not in the same city with her. She posted this link in her myspace bulletin area because it was her moment as a “celebrity”. Wow.
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Joel…You’re an idiot. Don’t throw stones at glass houses. You’re site is only as good as the job boards you continually slam and without this industry your house will shatter quickly. Must have been a slow news day for you to think this was a lead piece.
What’s next, are you going to report that a sales rep was pissed that a deal didn’t close, that a prospect deal went with south and the rep needed to vent, that sales rep really have emotions?
I’m not condoning what this person did, hard way to learn a tough lesson, but seriously – this is your idea of news??? I wonder how long it took you to troll around the web to find something like this. Probably not too long as Troll seems to be very fitting of your personality.
You’ve become a trash tabloid and it’s sad to see that you’ve hopped on the bandwagon of spewing garbage rather than reporting true industry news. Good for you ending someones career.
A real man, a person with conviction, morals and ethics would have contacted the rep and made the suggestion to “watch what you write.” But you took the high road and slashed the person to bits. You’re a man for others – that’s very clear. It’s people like you, those who enjoy seeing the demise of others, that will be in need of help somewhere down the line. And while we may be able to forgive you, we won’t forget who you truly are – a self centered idiot. Plain and simple.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Facetime – I have no comment on your comment except that I think you meant “low road”…as in “But you took the low road and slashed the person to bits”. Its like when I hear someone say, “for all intensive purposes…I have to say, you mean intents and purposes.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I have to agree with what Facetime said here. Slow news day for Joel. He could have reported on the fact that Jobing.com will not be at SHRM this year. I would think this is news considering last year they had the biggest booth in SHRM history and put on their own fireworks display at the Navy Pier in Chicago. Their booth was so big they even gave a piece of it to Cheezehead and ever since he has not posted a single negative piece about his friends in Phoenix. The year before they also had a monstrous booth at Las Vegas SHRM and spent over $300k renting out most of the Palms Hotel for the mega party at which Joel can be seen shooting a basketball at the super suite at Jobing.com after party in the picture of himself has been posted to this very site.
Instead of reporting that his friends at Jobing.com laid have fired 75% of their staff this blog reports the rumor that a job site that is barely holding on could buy HotJobs. What a joke. Rumor has it that Jobing’s CEO told his staff not to worry because Cheezhead will not be posting anything about them. It seems Jobing is right and Joel‘s bias is as clear is day.
That would have been real news instead of making news out of one individual’s poor judgment and costing this person their job. To all of you readers out there: This blog cannot be trusted to deliver real news in an unbiased way. If you want to bash Monster or Careerbuilder then read on and if you want real news about the industry instead of Perezhilton style subterfuge then go to ERE.com. That is where the real news is.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Just to clarify Rafael, I was being sarcastic with the high road comment. Let me also say that I have no relation to CB or their rep. Quite frankly, she was naive for not thinking about the ramifications of her comments on Twitter. And if she were my employee, I’d be extremely concerned about her actions.
With that said, I’m fairly certain that if we were to search through Joel’s email, my emails, and the emails from other “commentators” of this site, we’d probably find a nugget or two which express our discontent or frustration with prospects, clients, or coworkers. The only difference is that we’ve been smart enough to keep those comments off Facebook, Twitter etc.
What strikes most about this story is the fact that freedom on speech, whether you agree with the comment or not, gets chastised by someone who continually publishes biased and I do mean biased articles about companies in the online recruiting sector.
I understand that Cheezhead’s goal is two fold – to publish newsworthy items and to stir a little controversy. And as any reporter would tell you, they want to put their stamp on the article. While he may have stirred the pot, he missed the mark on this being newsworthy. The only positive I can see coming from this is that the 100 or so people that actually come to this site cleaned their Twitter comments, FB pages, MySpace site.
Shouldn’t we be able to express our thoughts, ideas, feeling without the fear of being singled out for having an opinion? It’s just sad that he’s done this at the expense of someone he has absolutely no affiliation with and it cost that person their job. Not sure that this person lost their job but it’s a safe assumption.
While technology has advanced the speed of communication, will we become a society too scared to speak our minds for fear losing a job? I highly doubt that he expected this article to spark a debate about Freedom of Speech, but if that was the case, then he did actually achieve his goal because it’s the only true story here.