There’s a way to prevent late-night drunk posts and profanity-filled tweets from getting in the way of a job.
NetClarify is a new startup company run out of the Innovation Hub that screens online content in order to identify information that could raise red flags to employers. It also provides the user with the tools to remove the problematic content.
“There are a lot of different numbers out there, but one of the more consistent ones I’ve seen is that about 92 percent of employers will screen candidates on social media sites,” said Jill Skufe, Career Development Coordinator at UF’s Career Resource Center.
To analyze a user’s presence on the Web, the software uses a word bank of 17,000 words to identify potentially offensive material and to determine the overall attitude of a person’s posts, said NetClarify CEO Adam Gross. These include “LMAO,” “sexy” and “beer.”
UF anthropology senior Mario Figueredo, 21, used NetClarify to clean his Facebook.
The service authenticated Figueredo’s identity by asking him to log in and then scanned elements like status updates, events and groups. The free Sample Report screened the last 50 posts. Figueredo had 52 red flags on words he used and was rated as a 75 percent positive person.
According to the website, a more extensive Gold Report, which costs $14.95, includes other sites like Twitter.
“It made me realize what I’m posting and how I can be seen by someone looking at my profile,” Figueredo said.
