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Discovering what employers see about you (or about someone else with your name) online is critical to your success.
Step 3. Determine Your Online Reputation
You could be held back in your job search by someone else's nasty actions or bad reputation - IF that someone else uses the same name you use. You MUST know what is online attached to your name so you can address the issue (step 6).
According to a 2010 study by Microsoft, job seekers are greatly underestimating the impact of their online reputations. And they won't know how this is hurting them - they just won't get any response from recruiters and employers too busy to follow up and clarify any confusion.
The graph, below, shows the percentage of US recruiters who have rejected job applicants based on what they have found online associated with the applicant's name (70%) vs. the percentage of U.S. consumers who worry about that (7%).
Recruiters who Have Rejected Applicants (70%!) vs.
People who Worry about Online Reputation (7%)
These are the places that recruters check before they contact an applicant for an interview or for a job offer. Notice that only 2% check none of these sources. Consider that they may be checking sources which aren't listed as well as not doing any checking online.
| Percent of recruiters and HR professionals who use these types of sites when research applicants |
| |
Search engines |
|
78% |
| |
Social networking sites |
|
63% |
| |
Photo and video sharing sites |
|
59% |
| |
Professional and business networking sites |
|
57% |
| |
Personal Web sites |
|
48% |
| |
Blogs |
|
46% |
| |
News sharing sites (e.g. Twitter) |
|
41% |
| |
Online forums and communities |
|
34% |
| |
Virtual world sites |
|
32% |
| |
Web sites that aggregate personal infomation |
|
32% |
| |
Online gaming sites |
|
27% |
| |
Professional background checking services |
|
27% |
| |
Classifieds and auction sites |
|
25% |
| |
None of these |
|
2% |
|
How do you determine what is out there about you or someone with the same name? You put Google to work for you.
- First you Google yourself, and go through the first 10 pages of search results to see if there are any people with the same name you have who have done something that could hurt your job search.
- Then, you set up a Google Alert on your name so you can see what appears in the future using daily Alerts. Google Alerts are free, and extremely useful.
If you discover a problem with your online reputation, you do have options, and the situation can be managed, even if the person involved is someone else who has the same name. See step Read Job-Hunt's Online Reputation Management article for help.
© Copyright, 1998 - 2012, Susan P. Joyce. All rights reserved.
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About the author...
Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff "graduate" who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg and on Google+
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