Protect Your Online Image

Do you use Facebook? Put up videos on YouTube? Belong to LinkedIn? Participate on other websites by posting your thoughts, pics or videos?

Have you ever tried Googling yourself?

A growing number of hiring managers, a reported 45% according to a CareerBuilder survey of over 2,600 hiring managers completed in June 2009, as well as human resource specialists, work colleagues and just people in general, do just that in order to see what, if anything, is out there about you in cyberspace.

You probably don’t want to be in an embarrassing video that is publicly available online or in a public picture that was meant to be a joke, especially if seen by your employer or a prospective employer. Even Facebook’s founder and CEO is not immune to such an occurrence, as he recently had pictures inadvertently released online to the public.

Consider taking the time now to think about what you are okay with posting online of yourself. What is acceptable among your friends may not always be acceptable to others in the world of work.

Assume that whatever you post online will be seen by everyone you know or will get to know in the future.

Action Steps to Consider

• Search yourself using the Google and Yahoo search engines to make sure you are okay with the results, if any, that you find.

• Make sure that your usernames and email addresses are appropriate for anyone to see.

• Consider signing up for Google Alerts to keep track of virtually anything that pertains to your interests.

Google Alerts will bring you the search results of particular words. You can select the frequency of updates, and the results are sent by email.

Consider starting a Google Alert of your full name. By doing so, you will essentially have an automated system in place that will search the web and bring back search results based on your name.

Note that you’ll need a Google account, which you already have if you use one of Google’s other tools like Gmail. Also note that putting quotation marks around your full name will produce the best results.

Bottom line: Do be careful and mindful of what you are posting online. Your reputation could depend on it.