Posted under Career Management, Career Planning, Online Identity on June 14th, 2007
While the story in the Wall Street Journal Online, “Firms Tidy Up Clients’ Bad Online Reputations” is extreme, it drives home a critical point. Your digital identity is permanent. And it is important. So much so that there is a whole industry cropping up to help people whose online identity paints a less than desirable picture.
Words are powerful. Once you commit them to paper, hit send or post, and send them out into cyberspace, they can reappear at the most inopportune times.
Like, for example, after a recruiter reads your amazing resume, but before he or she picks up the phone to call you because he is one of the 85% of recruiters who use online resources to uncover “information” about candidates and among the 35% of recruiters who eliminate candidates based on what he finds.
Or, when you have an opportunity to meet with a very influential contact following a warm introduction, and he happens to be one of the 23% of individuals who Googles a colleague prior to meeting with them for the first time.
Go ahead and pound the keyboard in a moment of anger or passion, just don’t hit the send button until you have thought about what you’ve said, how you’ve said it, and who might find it in cyberspace.
Posted by Cindy Kraft
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