| CAREERS NOW 04-08-07 |
| Online Image Ranks With Resume And Reference |
DEAR JOYCE: You earlier mentioned personal branding for professionals and
managers but with few details. Can you expand on how to handle it online? - K.C.
Pay attention to this whack-upside-the-head jolt: Your online image is quickly becoming as important as your customized
resumes and carefully managed references. I'll explain, but first consider a few terms that you may not yet be
using.
- Personal brand: The buzz about you; what you are known for - good or bad; your professional reputation;
and how you are distinguished by characteristics and achievements-- all saleable distinctions in the marketplace.
- Image management and reference management: In the world of work, actions that enhance a favorable
perception of how recruiters and managers see you before you're hired and as a candidate for promotion, or in a
downsizing, retention. Variations of these terms include identity management, Internet reputation management
and personal brand equity.
WHY ONLINE COUNTS. An Internet-driven shift in employment mindset is occurring as you read this. In an important
new book, "Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand" by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson
(Wiley, June 2007, $21.95), the authors claim "The Web is often the first place people go for information
on individuals of interest to them." They quote a variety of statistics gathered last year to back their point,
including this one: 75 percent of recruiters told a national career management firm that they Google candidates
and 35 percent eliminate them based on what their browser searches reveal.
GO EGO-SURFING. If you haven't yet discovered your own digital identity, now is a good time to see what
the world's most popular search engine says about you. But what if - bummer! - you find inaccurate or damaging
information staining your otherwise pristine image? You have options.
In the cleaning up the digital dirt department (like a disorderly conduct charge, business failure, law suit or
questionable photo), Arruda says you can either vacuum up the dirt or sweep it under the rug: "When you can't
ask a site owner to make the content go away, burying the hurtful content on page 37 of search results is the way
to go."
CROWDING IT OUT. That's good advice and classic strategy to pursue reference management: Smother a bad reference
with good references, losing it in the crowd. You can ditch online zingers through "search engine optimization
" marketing techniques, explains
Gillian Muessig, president of a leading SEO firm, Seomoz.org. "Chances
are about 98 percent that if an item isn't listed on the first two pages of a search, it will go unnoticed,"
Muessig says. "And if it is on page 37, make that probability 100 percent."
What's the cost to crowd out old bad with good new items through SEO techniques?
Muessig says that a job seeker using a home-based micro business might pay $500, while a company can expect to
pay $10,000 or more to a larger SEO firm. You may be able to read instruction books and do SEO yourself. The free
"Beginner's Guide to SEO" is a good place to start; search by title on seomoz.org.
OTHER APPROACHES. SEO moves that include the use of your own Web site and blog, however simple, are among
the most effective ways to recover from damaging online mentions, advises "Career Distinction" co-author
Dixson, whose Web site is Brandego.com. She has great tips to get your blog or site to rank higher in the search
engines than the information you don't want recruiters to see when they search on your name:
1. Try to use your own first and last name as the domain name.
2. Use your full professional name in headings or blog post titles, and throughout the body copy when it's natural
to do so.
3. Seek inbound links from relevant sites and link outward to them from your site. (Irrelevant reciprocal links
can lower your search-engine rankings.) Everything you do online should include a link back to you.
4. Blogs are search-engine friendly because they typically contain fresh content.
5. If your site hasn't already been spidered by the likes of Google, MSN and Yahoo!, register it with them. But
don't resubmit if you're already registered.
CHANGING TIMES. Is a blemished online identity keeping you unemployed? There's one sure way to find out.
Look yourself up on a search engine.
Email Joyce
Sorry, the volume of mail makes personal replies impossible.