My junior year at Scripps I interviewed for the position of Admissions Intern. After a summer of working with the Office of Admission, I wanted to return my senior year to work with AAT leadership responsible for prospective student events, in addition to a number of special projects for the office.

I interviewed from abroad via Skype. I had commandeered my host-family’s kitchen, brushed my hair, put on lipstick and a nice button-up shirt. I went in confident. I felt good, and I knew my interviewers personally. I had worked with them all before.

I had prepared for the questions I knew were coming. Why was I applying for this position? What could I bring to the table? How would I balance the significant commitment of this job with my classes and thesis?

I answered the questions. I asked some of my own. We laughed and caught up a little bit. Everything was going as expected, until a question that caught me completely by surprise.

I was Skyping with an Admissions Officer and two of the AAT student staff whose shoes I would be trying to fill. I knew something was up towards the end of the interview, when one student turned to the other and said, “should we ask her?”

There was a pause.

I was on the edge of my seat.

Part of the job, the student explained, is keeping tabs on Scripps’ online presence, including college forums like College Confidential. “Are you [user_name] on College Confidential?”

College Confidential– a forum that allows students and parents to ask questions about specific colleges, majors, internships, study abroad and generally obsess over the admissions process.

I could feel my face go bright red. I laughed nervously and admitted that yes, that’s me.

There was laughter and quiet cheering on the other end of the Skype call. Someone said, “I knew it!”

I racked my brain to think of all the things I’d posted under that username recently. I certainly hadn’t posted any of it with my job interview in mind, but I had never tried to stay particularly anonymous. I was never shy about sharing details like my hometown, my major, my classes or on-campus jobs. It was all about helping prospies, and in my experience, the more specific detail the better. Although I never deliberately kept them separate, I never expected my online identity to be revealed as part of a job interview. The illusion of any sort of online anonymity had been shattered.

When the interviewer made the comment, “I feel like we should already be paying you!” I knew things were still ok. My online forum presence actually turned out to be a positive thing, in this instance. Answering questions online was something I had been doing to procrastinate homework and feel as if I’m helping people… and it helped me get the job where I could continue answering questions online for parents and prospective students.

I was lucky. What if I had lost my patience and cussed out a forum troll?  I’ve been tempted, I’ll admit, but this interview was a good reminder that online behavior, even under an “anonymous” user name can have very real consequences, good and bad.