Polly Littlewood, 24 January 2006
As those AOL adverts keep telling us, the Internet can be both an amazing asset (think of all those school kids who can now Google their homework questions before getting straight back on their Xbox) and a nightmare network of immoral and potentially destructive information (how to build a bomb anyone?). Well the Internet can also have personal consequences for your job-hunt.




Think it’s just politicians and celebrities that get dragged through the mud on the net? You should really consider your own digital presence especially when looking for a new job.




A 2005 survey of 102 executive recruiters by ExecuNet an executive job-search and networking organisation, revealed that 75% of recruiters use search engines to find out information on potential employees. Quite a significant proportion of those recruiters actually eliminated candidates because of information they found on the web.





Google yourself



Ever typed your name into a search engine out of curiosity? Well it seems more and more likely that recruiters might be doing it too.
So if you’re going to make a concerted effort to check out what information is really out there the obvious first step is to type your name in quotation marks into a popular search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN.




It has been said that if you don’t appear in Google you don’t exist. While that might be an exaggeration you would be surprised at what strange titbits of information there might be out there about you. I don’t have much of a presence on the web, however a quick search could reveal what university I went, while a couple of online reviews I’ve written would highlight where I’ve been on holiday and what restaurants I’ve been to. This kind of information is pretty harmless, but perhaps you have written something on the web that shows a nastier side of your personality. Something that you would rather a potential employer didn’t know.






Ex-classmates dishing the dirt?



Don’t forget popular online communities like Friends Reunited. I once came across a profile of someone posing as an ex-classmate of mine. While I wasn’t that keen on this particular person, I still didn’t envy them the insulting fake personality that the impostor had created for them.




It might be worth a quick glance around sites like these just to make sure no one has been spreading vicious rumours.





And the rest...



Of course there is a whole host of ways that you can get accessible information about yourself on the web. Obvious examples are consumer reviews, community message boards, blogs and personal profiles for services like MSN Messenger. It goes without saying that you should be extra careful when uploading pictures of yourself to websites. Would you want your Saturday night antics turning up in the inbox of a prospective employer sourced from the image library of a search engine?





So what can you do about it?




1 - Self-censorship:


Simple really. Go through any of your personal blogs, community websites or profiles and remove anything you think might turn off a recruiter.




2 - Contact the site administrator:


See if you can get the offending material taken off the site in question or at least edited by contacting the site owner or message board monitor. If they say no then it’s unlikely that you will get very far by asking a search engine to remove it so you’ll just have to cross your fingers and hope that that recruiter won’t come across it. With this in mind, you will be certain to bear in mind rule number three…




3 - Prevention:


This is really the golden rule. Do not write anything that might be published on a website unless you would be happy for your mother or a boss to know about it! It’s much harder to undo the damage once it is done.



P.Littlewood (24/01/2006)