How to Clean Up Your Online Presence

These days, everyone who is anyone is online. The big virtual space that we know as the World Wide Web is so deeply embedded into our daily culture and routine that nearly everything we do can somehow be related to the Internet. So it’s only natural that when it comes to career building and job seeking, your online presence will play a role. Chances are, if you discovered a job posting online and applied there, more than likely, when that hiring authority receives your resume, they will type your name into Google, Facebook or LinkedIn and do their own research. The last thing you want is for that to hurt your chances at landing a position you really wanted.

Cleaning up your online presence is something that should be done every so often. Here’s a few methods that may help streamline the process.

• Make it a monthly goal. Pick a date, whether it be the first of the month or the very last day, and mark it in your calendar for the remainder of the calendar year.
• Regulate every post. Always keep the thought in the back of your mind that your coworkers and potential future hiring managers may one day see what you are posting. Ask yourself how you would feel if you saw the same photograph or article on another coworker’s profile. What thoughts would immediately come to mind?
• Enhance your privacy settings. Before sharing that photo on Facebook, choose the audience that you want to see it. During your monthly cleanup sessions, double check your account privacy settings for each of your social media accounts to make sure they are the way you want them to be.
• Don’t be fooled. Privacy settings are great, but don’t let them fool you into thinking that you are safe to post anything. Proceed with caution knowing that what you post, can, in some way or another, be seen by anyone. Anything is possible in the incredibly interconnected world of social media.

Networking is important, don’t get us wrong! Who you know can sometimes be just as important as what you know. We are big believers in social media and the power that it holds to connect us all. We’re telling you to go for it, network like crazy, but monitoring your online presence and regulating the content which you are sharing with the world is very important in preserving your identity.