Creating a Solid Online Identity

Guest Post from Julie Gomstyn (A senior at Tufts...hire her already.) who authors the blog: Social Media Novice

Confession: I love to Google myself. In fact, the time that I’ve spent on this narcissistic tendency probably would have been better used on say, grocery shopping or actually cleaning my apartment.

That being said, I’m not doing anything that prospective employers or clients wouldn’t do to you. The truth of the matter is that these days, Googling yourself could be considered a form of self-protection. Like it or not, we all have online identities now. And if for some reason, you don’t, that can be counted as a strike against you too.

So what do you do? I’ve compiled a few helpful suggestions, from the seemingly obvious to the more advanced.

Keep it PG-13

A journalist friend of mine once did research about a very *adult* topic for an article in college by signing up for a bunch of very * adult* forums and e-lists (hint: these people really liked pain). A few weeks later, she found that they were turning up on the first page of her Google search results. Luckily enough, she was able to delete her forum postings and remove her email address before anyone employment-related saw it.

But you may not get that lucky. If you have a proclivity for leather, binge drinking, binge drug using, binge swearing, binge Thai hookering, or anything else that you wouldn’t write home about, don’t post it online (or at the very least, use a pseudonym). For God’s sakes, Facebook has privacy settings for a reason.

Actually FILL OUT your LinkedIn profile

Do you have a LinkedIn profile? Is it completely, 100% filled out? Because LinkedIn will tell you if it’s not. And you should listen. The site has a very high Google page ranking, which means that it will almost always turn up on the first page of your search results, usually at the very top. So anyone who searches for you online is guaranteed to see it – you should be taking advantage of that.

Don’t be lazy about this – if done correctly, your LinkedIn profile can serve as your resume, cover letter, and reference sheet, all in one. Don’t just list the places where you’ve worked – go into detail about your responsibilities. Highlight your key skills and experiences in the summary section. If you’re currently unemployed, don’t let that be your tag line. Instead, write what you’re looking for. And perhaps best of all, get yourself a recommendation or two. They’re only a few lines of writing, but this way, people can see that you have good references without having to make a single phone call.

Pretend to read: comment on articles online

Are you in any way racist, sexist, or attracted to dead things? Skip this section.

But if not, then start sharing your thoughts online. You don’t need to start a blog to do it – today, there are tons of publications that allow you to comment on their articles. If you use your full name when doing it, then it’ll show up in online searches and your prospective employer may actually think that you read The Wall Street Journal on a regular basis.

And better yet, if you want to get industry-specific, there are plenty of different blogs that you can comment on, depending on your career: marketing blogs for marketers, psychology blogs for psychologists. I shit you not, there’s even one that’s all about rat extermination: http://ratexterminationforbeginners.blogspot.com/2009/03/rat-exterminators.html. Social media: assisting exterminators since 2008.

The caveat: you can’t just write comments like, “This article sux” or “Look at me, I’m commenting on a blog. Hire me!” Your comments need to be pertinent, well-written, and spell-checked. Otherwise, they certainly won’t make you look good, and the moderator may not even put them up.

Pretend to read, part 2: write a book review on Amazon.com

The idea here is similar to commenting on online articles. Except that in book reviews, you can feel free to write much more in depth. If you work in communications, use this as an opportunity to put writing samples online. For other professions, try reviewing professional guides, like C++ for Dummies or books on management consulting. You can tie these reviews back to you own professional experiences. Again, most of the caution here is that these reviews need to be articulate, thoughtful, grammatically correct, etc.

That, and you want to avoid writing reviews for the following genres of literature: satanic bibles, romance novels, books on kicking one’s drug addiction, and anything Hannah Montana-related.

photo credit: marcfonteijn

tagged as googling, jgummy, julie gomstyn, online identity, prospective employers, social media identity