Your Job Search - How Your Online Presence Can Help Or Hinder

John Goode could not understand why he was not getting so much as a callback in response to any of the resumes he had sent out. He had spent over a month researching companies and sending off professionally written resumes to close to 100 potential employers.

When he finally did get an interview, he was disappointed to learn that, though the hiring manager had been impressed with his experience and skills, they had decided to go with someone else. When he asked the manager for an honest reason as to why he was not selected, the reason she gave took him completely by surprise.

It was because of the information available about him on sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Although John had been out of college for five years, there was still plenty of photographic evidence of his hard partying college ways all over the internet. With so many employers including an internet search of potential employees in their hiring process, these photographs had hurt John's chances of finding employment.

Luckily, it was fairly easy for John to correct this. He simply deleted any questionable photographs and asked his friends to remove any tags about him from their photos. Next, he decided to use his networking pages to help, rather than hinder, his job search. After removing any silly quotes, photos, and other items, he replaced them with snippets about his career goals, some samples of past accomplishments and photos that showcased him as a well-rounded, ethical and likable man.

Making sure that you have a professional online presence is not just a nice idea, it is a necessity. Even though you consider your Facebook or other social networking sites to be only for your friends, if you aren't careful about privacy settings, then anyone can see your information.

At the beginning of your job search, take time to review all of your pages on any social networking sites to which you belong. Either clean them up, close them down or be sure the privacy settings are foolproof. Also, do an internet search of your name. Look at as many of the hits as possible to be sure there is no negative information about you of which you might not be aware.