Career and Kids

Hiring and your online reputation

by elizabeth on February 9th, 2007

If you, or, your older kids have been hanging around the Internet, chances are, a potential employer would like to know what you or they have out there before hiring you.

Do employers really look at what you’ve said or done online? Can your child’s MySpace page keep him from getting hired?

You bet.

Right or wrong, online information from social networking sites, and, the like, is public domain, and, companies routinely screen applicants using the Internet. It’s important, especially for our college aged kids to understand that, even though they may have cleaned up their home page when they start a job search, old information is still only a click away.

So, what’s a job seeker to do if they want to put their best Internet face forward? It’s big business, and, there’s even companies out there who can help you clean up your online reputation.

But, if you want to tackle it on your own, the Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal.com offers some tips:

• Clean up your Facebook (or other social networking sites)
• Google yourself
• Bury your “dirt” by crowding it out with positive information
• Monitor your own online presence

But, I think the best advice is to think before you put questionable content out there in the first place, and, it’s something we need to teach our kids at an early age.

Teens and young adults have heard again and again about keeping yourself safe online, that they may be tuning out, but, if they learn it could hit them in the wallet one day, maybe that will give them a new perspective.

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POSTED IN: Career, Preparing Kids For Careers