So, you’re looking for a job. You’ve written and rewritten your resume till it seems quite great. You’re diligently sending it off to companies for jobs you’re sure you appear qualified to do. The problem is, you’re getting very little or no response. You’re frustrated and wonder why.
If you think it’s just the weak economy, you’re probably wrong. Instead, what could be limiting your response is how you appear online to potential employers.
Many will check your name on Linkedin and Google before choosing to contact you for an interview. So if anything unflattering comes up, you could easily be passed over in this very competitive job market.
So, first things first. Start making writing a regular part of your job search schedule. Every day write at least one comment or blog article and post it online. Why? Because you want to try and dilute the old negative mentions of you by adding more recent and more positive content that mentions your name. After a while you may see the bad items pushed off the first page of Google, Bing and other search engines that potential employers may use to search for information about you.
Some online reputations are relatively easily cleaned up this way, but others are not and require the help of a professional – a so-called Online Reputation Management or ORM firm that has the knowledge, skills and people to help improve most personal and business reputations on the Internet (those convicted of some heinous crime in the past need not apply, though).
And one more thing, if you’ve done stuff in the past that wasn’t so honorable, do yourself and the world a favor and clean up your act for real, not just online.
Happy hunting.