Google Is Your Online Resume
In a time when jobs are tough to find there is an increasing trend of potential employers using Google as your online resume. Employers are now more than ever using various methods of searching the web to look at their potential hires on social networks such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter as well as major search engines such as Google.
It is important that when searching for a job you first “Google Yourself” to see what pops up because many times people are surprised. There have been numerous stories of both young and old not getting jobs due to embarrassing photographs, negative writings/blog posts, PDF’s from past lawsuits/criminal complaints, and more. Now with many job rating websites and person rating websites there can be negative information about your past jobs without your knowledge of it ever existing. Another large problem with these types of websites are that the anonymous complaints can be from random people who have a grudge against you.
The next step of course is clearing up the bad results on Google before you start your job search. The clearing up of results to create positive news can be very hard for a beginner as it takes knowledge of how complex search engines work but the best way for the average person to clear up the results would be doing maintenance first on their own websites. If you have a social networking profile or profiles then first either makes the account private so no one including search engines can view it and or remove all photos/public messages that would make your employer view you in a negative light. The next step to clean up your online reputation would be to find any other first and second page negative content that you do not control and see if there is an option to have it removed by responding to the criticisms. This works in many cases as the websites will allow those being ridiculed to respond to accusations and according to many privacy policies will remove false and malicious content (most of the time to avoid lawsuits). After all of your content is cleaned up you will have to take on a new state of mind that anything you post online will be viewed by friends, family, employers, and your enemies because more than likely it will.
In more complex situations of high profile individuals it is best to consult with a company such as ours to get experienced insight and services to assure you are seen in a positive manner.