You On The Web

Hadn't thought of this but Jared Flesher at Wall Street Journal Online did.  For some reason I didn't realize that recruiters and potential employers might take five minutes and Google you, the applicant, before making an offer.  Didn' t think of it but you might not either.  You should.

Hit this for the whole article http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/usingnet/20060112-flesher.html?cjpartner=mktw   Here are some highpoints.

Google yourself first.  Find out what is out there.  Flesher recommends contacting the site's owner if you see something you don't like and asking them to remove it.  Good luck.  If they refuse, don't even contact the search engine.  They don't have time or the authority to remove something.

Clean up Facebook.  Or I guess, now, MySpace.  Something funny to friends will probably look stupid to an employer or a headhunter so do some heavy edits.

Bury your dirt.  Not sure how to do this but sounds like you pump up the good stuff by setting up a bunch of links.  The bad stuff gets outnumbered and overwhelmed by the good stuff.  That's the idea, I think, but will leave it up to you to figure it out.

Find out what people are saying about you.  Flesher mentions a site, Pubsub.com, that will alert you when you come up in a blog or anything else.  Have to look into that.

Anyway, a good article on one more thing that can cost you a job.  Check it out.