CheckMate

With the volume of information that’s publicly available about all of us now, you need to know what information of yours is out there and take control of it. You can bet that recruiters and employers are going to check you out online, so you better have a very good idea of what they are going to find.

For example, a Wall Street Journal article today called “Job References You Can’t Control” discusses yet another new twist on this subject - employers and recruiters are now using professional networking sites like LinkedIn to check out people who have worked with or personally know job candidates. While the article only addresses one fairly specific area of online presence, it points out yet again how important that presence is and controlling it has become.

You know, this seems like an obvious one to me since it’s discussed constantly and I spend so much time in the online world, but based on the stories I still read all the time, I guess it’s not, so I’ll say ‘the obvious’ here, too.

Bad stories in this area abound. The classic example - and where this subject first really gained notice - usually involves a college senior about to graduate being offered a job, but then the employer finds something negative in the person’s MySpace or Facebook profile (like compromising pictures of the person out partying), and the offer is withdrawn.

You don’t need to lose sleep over this kind of stuff, though, and while you can read exhaustive lists of things to do, here’s just a few key ones that will go a long way toward making your online reputation a positive one.

• First, and most important - don’t add to the problem. When you look closely at most of the negative stories, it’s usually stuff that people did to themselves. Always think about what you put online, whether it’s something you write, a photo, a comment on a site, whatever - because it will be seen. Worse yet, things have a tendency to hang around forever online and are very hard to get rid of. Enough said.

• ‘Google yourself’. There are a lot of other search engines, but the latest figures show Google being used for 64% of all searches, so it’s the one that someone else will likely use and so should you. Do at least a basic search on your name.

• Take proactive steps by getting the information you want online out there. One of the best ways to do that is to create profiles at places like LinkedIn, Naymz, and ZoomInfo. Not only do you get to post exactly what you want, information from those sites normally shows up near the very top of a Google search on your name.

Bottom line is you can’t control all the online information about you, but with a reasonable amount of effort, you can have a big impact.

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