Infographic Impact of Your Online Reputation

Infographic Impact of Your Online Reputation Infographic Impact of Your Online Reputation 16When you’re applying for jobs, you might think that your job application (i.e., resume and cover letter) will speak volumes for your work experience, education, level of professionalism, and your hire-ability. And in part, that’s true. But did you know that the vast majority of hiring managers will look at your online reputation and social media presence (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.) to try and attain a complete picture of you even before they call you for a job interview? That’s why you should know where you stand- online that is. In the utterly adorable .Me infographic “Online Content Has Real Life Implications,” people were surveyed to see the impact of your online reputation- and believe us, it can make a huge difference in whether you’re hired for a position or not. Whether you’re busy job searching or, ahem, surfing through Facebook, more than half of people surveyed (53 percent, to be exact) have not monitored online information about themselves. Even scarier is that 79 percent of Americans state they haven’t done anything to even manage the info that’s online about them. Its not surprising, then, that only 22 percent of people found information that is exactly what they want to see. One in three people found that other people have shared their name and influenced content (negatively, one might assume) and 12 percent were unpleasantly surprised by the search results they found. Unfortunately, it tends to be when people find negative or incorrect info that they take the steps to do something about it. Of those who found erroneous information online, 77 percent have become proactive in monitoring online content about themselves. Some people suggested that creating a personal website (61 percent) could help manage their online reputation- or help, at least, buffer the bad info that’s currently out there. So let’s say you Google yourself and are less than thrilled with the results. Here are some steps you can take: 1. Try to get the info removed. Let’s say you were at a friend’s party and someone snapped an unflattering shot of you. To add insult to injury, the person then tagged you- and set the picture to public. If the information is traceable to a source (like social media, for example), by all means you should contact the person or company and fight to get it removed. There are service that can help you to clean up your online reputation, but they can be costly and there’s no guarantee everything will be removed. 2. Create new content. Despite your valiant efforts to remove the smudge from your online presence, there’s simply no way to get rid of it. The next best step is to bury the incriminating info with positive information instead. Create professional social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter and update them often. Consider creating a personal website- 61 percent of those surveyed in the .Me study said that can help clean up your reputation- or at least buffer the bad info that’s currently out there. 3. Be vigilant. If you haven’t set up Google alerts for your name, now’s the time. It’s fairly simple to do, and you’ll receive email alerts whenever your name (or anything else that you’ve set for your Google alerts) appears online. That way, if something bad shows up, you can tackle the problem right away, ideally before a hiring manager finds it. The impact of your online reputation can make all the difference when you’re job searching. So even though you might think it’s just one more thing to do in your never-ending list of job search responsibilities, monitoring- and correcting- your online reputation is a very necessary step towards landing the job you want. Readers, are you monitoring your online reputation? Did you ever find anything that had to be removed? Let us know what happened in the comments below!