How to Manage Your Online Image to Advance Your Career

Managing your online image is important for job hunters, experts advise. "Let your public images be more professional and not open to misinterpretation," says Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings.

Google yourself. What do you find? Will it help you get your next job? If not, it's time to sharpen your online image.

Human resource departments and staffing firms are increasingly going online to vet and find new employees. Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, says, "Managing your online persona is one of the most valuable and important things a candidate can do."

"Most recruiters today will search and look at whatever is publicly available about candidates — via LinkedIn profiles, Twitter, Facebook or websites used by tech professionals such as GitHub or stackoverflow.com."

Dice in late 2012 began to beta test its Open Web tool that gives employer clients access to a massive database of information — about 130 million people, profiles developed by aggregating public profiles from about 50 different websites. About a quarter of Dice's 6,500 employer customers have tried Open Web, Melland says. The database is updated in "near real time," Melland says.

(During the first half of 2013, Dice will allow end users to access their Open Web profiles free of charge to see what's there.)

A 2011 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey found that 26 percent of organizations used online search engines to screen job candidates, while 18 percent used social media websites such as LinkedIn and Facebook to screen candidates. But Paul Belliveau, former co-chairman of SHRM's technology and HR management expertise panel, expects that frequency to increase.

Human resources personnel are tasked with making sure that employees not only can do the job, but also can be trusted to represent the brand. So HR departments are turning to the Internet's informal social media—such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn—because, as Belliveau says, they "give a much deeper look at that whole person."

In light of that, Melland says, "People should realize they leave a digital footprint, and they should manage that public persona."

Below are some tips for managing your online presence:

Search Yourself

"Find out what's out there," urges Tracy Bicknell-Holmes, engineering librarian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Bicknell-Holmes gives workshops and has developed a website about online image management. "Use different search engines and different computers" to sidestep search engines that return search results based on your earlier search activity.

"Have your friend look you up—he or she will get different results than you do."

Take Stock

Draw up a list of all your various social and business profiles on the Internet, suggests Melland. "Go look at them and determine whether the information is up to date and accurate, and decide whether you want that information publicly distributed or not."

Decide What's Public, What's Private

"Sit down and make a conscious decision to separate your public persona and your private persona," suggests Bicknell-Holmes, then take action to make it so.

Use Privacy Settings

Use privacy settings, friends groups and good judgment to manage your online information, images, tweets and posts according to how you want your public persona to appear. "You can create groups on Facebook and social media that enable you to post things that are more personal to friends and family but keep them out of the public eye," says Bicknell-Holmes.

Get Rid of the Negative

"If you find things out there that you don't like, consciously work on getting rid of them," urges Bicknell-Holmes. This can mean emptying out old Wiki profile pages, untagging yourself from friends' Facebook posts or images, or even asking websites to take information or old profiles down. Says Melland: "Let your public images be more professional and not open to misinterpretation."

Build Your Professional Image

Melland, Belliveau and Bicknell-Holmes all recommend that you actively build your professional presence on the web. There are multiple ways to do this.

• Create a strong LinkedIn profile as a start. "The thing I like about LinkedIn is that you can join particular groups, upload your resume, build a bio or deliver a one-sentence elevator pitch," says Bicknell-Holmes, who suggests Harvard Business School's elevator pitch builder as a great tool for honing the wording of your profile.



• Make sure online profiles—LinkedIn or others—mention the important projects you've worked on, major personal interests, and your professional official affiliations. "It's all about demonstrating the skills that you have and also indicating where your passions are," says Melland.



• Join professional organizations or forums relevant to your career, and then promote that affiliation in your online profiles. Joining professional groups can help you to build connections, says Belliveau. "Joining a professional society helps extend your personal brand to people completely outside your social network." (CompTIA has numerous LinkedIn Groups, including the CompTIA Certified Professionals Group.)
  
  
• Create a website, blog or participate in industry online forums to get exposure online.

>RELATED: Resources for Online Image Management

Help Companies Find You

If you have an indistinct name, Bicknell-Holmes suggests that you consider ways to tweak your professional name to make it more unique and easier to pinpoint in Internet searches. So, for example, a Mary Jones with the middle name Theresa could use the name "M. Theresa Jones" professionally to stand out in Internet searches.

Be Cautious — Always

The Internet is forever. True privacy is essentially toast. In this environment, Bicknell-Holmes says, "Think before you post—that can be very hard, but it's extremely important. And be very careful who you friend."