Not in the habit of monitoring your online identity? You should be.
If you’re in an executive job search, recruiters and hiring decision makers are Googling you for deeper information before considering you for the positions they’re trying to fill.
“Google yourself. If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do. If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do. If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.” – Seth Godin
Self-Googling is not a frivolous or vain activity. It’s part of good career management and you should be doing it at least once a week. Digital dirt about you can ruin your chances in the job market. In fact, even a mediocre online identity can toss you out of the running.
To judge how your online presence stacks up, check out Is Your Online Identity Sabotaging Your Executive Job Search?
To help you monitor what people are finding out about you online, sign up for a Google Alert for “your name”.
Google will send you an email whenever your name appears online. If you use variations of your name, add an alert for each one. If you have a website or blog, add an alert for the URL (“www.myname.com”). Set up alerts for any words or phrases that will identify you online.
What if you find digital dirt or anything that will discredit you? I’ve outlined just some of the things you can do to increase stellar search results for you and push the bad stuff down to the bottom:
If you’re diligent about building a positive on-brand online presence, any damaging results for you will move so far down the list they’ll become inconsequential.
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