What would an online search say about you?

Have you ever wondered whether a potential employer might probe beyond your stellar resume, your well written cover letter, and your list of references to determine if you are really a good fit for the job? If not, perhaps you should.

At some point within the last decade or so, armed with a computer and an internet connection, some employers began embarking on unofficial secret reconnaissance missions to uncover the real person behind the resume. These early pioneers who paved the way for today’s recruiters had one primary goal in mind: checking for skeletons in the closet.

This unofficial practice caught on quickly and, today, many employers consider a review of a candidate’s online exposure to be an essential part of the job application process. In one study, 45% of employers surveyed indicated that they routinely consult profiles on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn to help screen applicants. Another survey indicates that 3 out of 4 recruiters regularly conduct some sort of internet research on candidates. That same survey suggests that 1 in 4 employers have eliminated candidates based on what they uncovered during such electronic background checks.

As personal information available online continues to increase, job seekers should expect the number of employers who rely on the web as an important resource in assessing applicants to grow.

So, what does that mean for you, the job applicant?

Check Your Profiles

First, the obvious: it means that you should edit your profiles, if necessary, to ensure that you appear to be, at a minimum, a law-abiding, respectable member of society. Yes, that means you need to remove the photo of you dancing on top of a bar. And, yes, as long as you are searching for a job, that means that you need to keep it clean when writing on your buddy’s wall. Utilizing a site’s privacy settings may help you avoid exposing information that a recruiter might find offensive, but the better approach is to conduct a comprehensive review of your online image before you start sending out resumes.

Consider Discrepancies

However, in this digital age where information is so easily accessible, merely sanitizing your e-persona may not be enough. Instead, as a routine part of preparing any employment application, job seekers should take steps to ensure that the information an employer may find about them online is consistent with the information they deliberately submit during the application process. If your online persona does not resemble the person in the interview or the person described in the resume, recruiters may suspect that your stellar resume is misleading, that your well written cover letter is a fraud or that your former boss was less than candid when she gave you that glowing recommendation. The best advice for job seekers as they take steps to overhaul their online image: consistency is key.

For example, if your profile on a professional networking site highlights your talent as a salesman, but your resume and cover letter present you as a behind-the-scenes researcher, an employer may question the veracity of the information in your application. If your personal blog contains anti-government rants, but you submit your resume to a state agency, the red flags will start waving.

An Example

A lawyer friend of mine recently interviewed a candidate for a litigation position. Although the applicant described her passion for trial work and her aggressive advocacy skills, when my friend consulted a public website profiling and rating legal professionals, he learned that her practice previously focused on transactional work and that she had never even tried a case. Although that candidate was able to get her foot in the door with the representations contained in her resume, the discrepancies between her online persona and the image she projected in her interview convinced my friend that he could not trust her.

An Employer Perspective

Some employers, particularly those faced with huge stacks of resumes, may take this process a step further. One of my colleagues recently accepted applications for a sales position. His job posting made it clear that he sought someone with an outgoing personality who thrived in social settings. He easily narrowed the field of applicants by checking Facebook accounts and eliminating the possible wallflowers and introverts. From what he tells me, some applicants who did not receive invitations to interview looked great on paper. While I initially balked at what appeared to me to be a potentially unreliable test of aptitude or character, he insists that this was an inexpensive, easy way to begin the vetting process.

While capturing an employer’s attention and conveying one’s strengths should be a job seeker’s primary goal, applicants must also ensure that information employers can find about them online is consistent with the information they voluntarily provide. This warrants augmenting profiles on social networking sites and arming yourself with knowledge about all the information available about you in cyberspace.

About the author: In his role in the self storage industry, Tim Eyre helps customers care for their cherished belongings that must be put in storage. Tim regularly visits his facilities including a Philadelphia self storage center. He also was recently meeting customers and staff at the Chicago self storage center.

Think before you type when it comes to anything you do online...

Technology is great but sometimes it can get people into trouble if they misuse it or don’t take enough time and effort to use it properly.

I tend to notice little things when it comes to how people act and one of the things I tend to see more and more is how the use of email makes people lazy. I always open emails by saying “Hi Marc” or “Hey Joan” depending on who the person is and how well I know them. The nature of the correspondence also tends to dictate whether I’d start the email with “Dear Karen” if I was applying for a job for example.

Many people simply reply to an email without the opening salutation and simply start the email with their response which kind of annoys me.

How hard is it to say hi to the person you’re trading emails with?

Certainly if you’re trading a string of emails, the second and subsequent ones tend to less formal and that’s cool but for the opening one I just think it’s professional and good mannered to at least address the person you’re dealing with.

OK, perhaps that’s a small one…It just bothers me for some reason.

There are certainly much bigger issues when it comes to digital etiquette like whether or not you should be friends with your boss on Facebook for example. I guess it depends on the job you hold and how it’s perceived in that industry. If you work in a professional and old-school environment, perhaps it’s not such a great idea. But if you work in social media or in another Internet-related field, or perhaps in another funky field where technology is embraced, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea.

I guess a bigger question is how to react if you’re a manager who gets friended by a staffer or the reverse, where you’re an employee who gets friended by your boss. In these instances, I think the above-mentioned comment about the industry and job you have might help to play a part as does your actual interest in being friends with that person.

Yesterday I read a story about teachers who had been told by their school board not to become friends with students on Facebook. This one is probably a bit more obvious but I’m sure there are some teachers and other professionals who’ve gotten themselves into trouble by getting a bit too close to students or patients or other people who they should have maintained a more formal relationship with even if there was no bad intent.

These days it’s increasingly difficult to do anything that doesn’t get noticed by someone especially when whatever you’re doing is done online.

Just ask the high school secretary in Quebec who got fired from her job after it was found that she was moonlighting as an online porn star…

Whether it’s is fiddling with your iPhone or other device during meetings or your cellphone going off in a job interview, digital etiquette seems to be something that many people probably need to think a bit more about especially when they’re in an environment where people noticing how you’re acting can hurt you if it’s perceived that you’re being rude.

When it comes to social media, there’s the further realization too that much of what you do online – that is available for other people to read – is time-stamped so do you really want your boss and colleagues knowing that you’re spending your work hours playing around on non-work related social media sites?

Are you willing to hand over your keys?

I read an interesting story online this week suggesting that some employers in parts of the US were asking for the login information for the Facebook accounts of prospective employees.

The employers who were mentioned in the article who were asking for this information included a police department, municipal government and a correctional institution. So based on the list I saw these employers were largely limited not to publicly-traded companies – who perhaps know better! – but to government institutions and public service ones.

What an odd situation but I guess it was bound to happen. With people spending more and more time surfing various social media websites – including during work hours in many cases – companies perhaps think they have a right to know what you’re doing at work and out of work.

The article went on to say that the employers in question had largely changed their mind and stopped asking for the Facebook passwords once the public uproar got big enough but still, should they have done it in the first place?

What would you do if a hiring manager asked you for your Facebook password or your login information for Twitter, your email account or something else?

How far can a prospective employer go before your privacy becomes more important the job itself?

Even if you don’t necessarily have anything to hide or even if you don’t have a Facebook account in the first place – what would happen if you didn’t get a Facebook account until after you were hired? Are you obligated to let them know? – how would you feel about an employer asking for your password to anything of yours?

I guess if you’re bold enough you could say something to the effect of “sure, as soon as you give me yours first” but I’m not sure that would help your cause getting the job assuming you were not turned off by working for an employer who was requesting such information in the first place.

I guess if I was asked for this sort of information in an interview, I’d first ask why they wanted it and then decide if I wanted to pursue things further with this company based on their response. If you don’t actually have a Facebook account of course, it’s probably going to be a shorter conversation.

While I understand why a potential employer wants to ensure the person they’re hiring isn’t hiding something and perhaps wants to see what the person is really like amongst their friends, asking for someone’s password goes against everything we know about doing stuff online.

Whenever anyone asks for a password to something of ours, we’re immediately conditioned to be suspicious and rightly so. Identity theft isn’t going away anytime soon and sharing login info with others is the best way to spread it and make yourself a victim.

Further, if in fact you did hand over your password to the interviewer and then in the future someone hacked into your account and caused your grief, could you go after the employer legally for possibly compromising your account? Afterall, they had your login info and who knows who else they shared it with? Sure, you can change your password but presumably the employer wants to access your account at some point and who knows what they’ll do while in your account. Unless you already know the person hiring you, you don’t know the person hiring you of what they’re capable of.

While I understand the need for ensuring you’re hiring the right people especially in fields like law enforcement, corrections, etc it’s difficult to figure out if accessing someone’s social media accounts will help much.

Having said that, an aspiring UFC fighter from Canada who was also training to be a police officer was recently removed from the police training program after photos of him were discovered online during a time earlier in his MMA career when he dressed up in a top hat and cane and was nicknamed Pimp Daddy. While the official word from the police was that his MMA career could detract from his dedication to becoming a cop, most people seemed to believe it was the photos that did him in and that a police officer who dressed like a pimp probably didn’t send the right message…

In this case, the guy was done in without use of his login information and was simply caught by his past which was still documented online.

I read an article today about how many young people are temporarily shutting off access to their social media – access to their Facebook and MySpace profiles for example – when they start looking for a job so that potential hiring managers don’t find something about that person that perhaps puts the person in a bad light.

At first glance it seems like a good idea, limiting access to information that they have willingly put online about themselves so as to not get themselves into trouble.

At a second glance though, it makes you wonder why they’d bother putting stuff in the public domain in the first place if they felt it was going to cost them a job or make them look bad in a professional manner?

These days it isn’t hard to post stuff on the Net that you might later regret. Sometimes it’s more difficult to completely erase it with the snap of a finger though so it’s best to consider this before posting anything.

Last month we asked the question what does your online reputation say about you?

What I didn’t mention though is the question of what you can do when you find out through a Google search that this is information out there that hurts you and your reputation?

If the information is something you can fix – like those drunk photos of you we talked about back on November 11 obviously you can fix that yourself.

But what if you have built an online reputation that you’d prefer wasn’t so readily available to a potential hiring manager through a Google search?

Maybe you have religious or political beliefs that you’ve discussed online, perhaps chat rooms or forums refer to you in unflattering terms, stuff like that.

How can you combat things like this?

For starters you can ensure that the profiles you have created on the Internet and can control – like your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles if applicable – are professional and worthy of being seen by a potential hiring manager. I’d say the LinkedIn one (and ones like it) are more important since anyone can do a quick search and view your basic profile whereas with Facebook at least you can limit the people who can view your profile. Plus LinkedIn is a professional networking tool that many hiring managers might automatically check. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, it could be a good idea to create a professional one since quite often it will help to produce a highly ranked search engine result when typing in your name.

Secondly, you can change the way your name is shown in your resume. If your name is Mike Smith and Googling your name yields the negative results, on your resume you could try showing your name as Michael A. Smith (or whatever your middle initial is) or Michael Anthony Smith. In other words, you spell your name out in whole in a different form than what appears on the Net. People tend to use the spelling of your name as you shown it and may even copy and paste it directly into the search engine. If you utilize this method, make sure your online profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) use your full name, too.

Keep an eye out for anything you submit online when you use your full name (which you shouldn’t do anyways). If you’re posting comments to chat rooms or forums using your real name, it could come back to haunt you.

If you’ve received a call from a recruiter out of the blue, you’ve probably wondered how the recruiter found your name especially if you’re not looking for a job.

Recruiters often tell you something to the effect of “I was confidentially referred to you” or something like that which is just to get you off the subject and not worry about where they found you.

It normally has the effect of making people feel important because someone apparently thought enough of them that they told the recruiter “you must give this call this person and help them out!”

The truth is that it usually isn’t that impressive especially these days when people can be so readily found through the Internet alone. Sorry to burst your bubble.

These days, it probably isn’t difficult to figure out how a recruiter found you given the numerous online methods that we can use to advertise our name ie. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and of course numerous job boards that you might have posted your resume to.

If you’ve written online articles, have a blog, run a website or get quoted in online publications, your name is going to be somewhere on the Internet available for people like recruiters to see.

In the old days – that would be pre-Internet – recruiters used various and sometimes interesting methods to find people. My first boss in the IT recruitment industry who began in the industry back in the 1970s before they even had fax machines let alone the Internet once told me that he used to go through the phone book white pages and look for certain last names and would cold call them asking if they worked in IT based on the premise that many people in IT at the time were from certain ethnic groups. Seriously!

Needless to say, sourcing methods to locate job searchers have improved since then…

These days recruiters tend to still use some of the following methods to find people who may or may not be looking for a job at the time:

1. Referrals: Recruiters get names of people from people that they are speaking with. Often they’ll ask for the names of a few people you know who are looking for a job and also names of people who aren’t necessarily looking for a job. They build up a network by speaking and meeting with people and getting them to refer the recruiter to others.

2. References: We spoke about this back in the keeping your references close to your chest blog. Recruiters often like to use the references you gave them to see if they help them find a job, too. Or if they’re a hiring manager, the recruiter will see if they can help them with their hiring requirements. This is why it’s important to protect your references.

3. A Google search: If you’ve ever Googled your name, you might have to go through a few pages of search results before you find a webpage that refers to you specifically especially if you have a common or popular name! Having said that, as mentioned above if you write articles or get quoted on the Internet, have a blog, use online social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, run a website or belong to some group or organization that has an online presence, chances are your name is somewhere on the Internet just waiting to be found by a recruiter.

4. Dialing for Names I: Here’s an old-school method that some recruiters still use – I’ve had a few recruiters find me in the past this way and I admit I used it myself. The recruiter calls into the main switchboard number of your company and when they go to the automated attendant, they search the employee directory by last name and if you work for a small company with say 20 staff or so, they’ll jot down the name (and extension if given) of every staff member that shows up. Some people mention their job title or functional area in their voice prompt so that makes it even easier. If I’m searching for an HR rep and I hear an employee prompt that says “Jane Smith, HR, ext 111″ well, I know that Jane is an HR staffer and I’ll give her a call.

5. Dialing for Names II: This is a more sophisticated method than Dialing for Names I. The recruiter calls into reception and asks to speak with the person who holds the job that they’re trying to fill. For example if I’m looking to fill a Network Administrator position, I’ll ask to speak with the Network Administrator. Sometimes the receptionist will ask who I am and why I want to speak with this employee (if they’ve been trained to weed out recruiters) so the recruiter typically makes up an excuse and pretends they have a legitimate need to speak with this person. If I’m looking for a salesperson or someone in accounts receivable though, that’s even easier. How many receptionists are going to question why I want to speak with a sales rep? Uh, because I’d like to buy something.

6. Dialing for Names III: This is even more sophisticated than Dialing for Names I & II. This is when the recruiter calls into your company and asks the receptionist for the names of various staff members usually starting with a manager or executive since it tends to be less obvious. The recruiter will jot down the name of the executive or manager and then ask how many people that person has in their group and ask for a few names and job titles. If at any point the receptionist questions the motive for the call, the recruiter will tell them they’re doing due diligence or research or something like that.

7. Company directories: The easiest way to get a list of the employees in a company is to get a list of the employees in the company. If your company still prints paper copies or printable versions of your staff directory, chances are it’s sitting on the desk of several or more recruiters.

8. Cold calling someone and asking for their help: This is a method I’ve used numerous times with a fair bit of success actually. The first two jobs I was working on where I tried this, it resulted in me filling two positions within one week. I take a job that I’m working on and start calling into companies that I know would have employees who have the type of job I’m trying to fill. I ask to speak to the hiring manager and when I get this person on the phone or on voice mail, I let them know I’m a recruiter, let them know the type of job I’m trying to fill and I ask for their help (even though they don’t even know me!): I ask who they know that could do the job I’m trying to fill and make it clear I’m not trying to take any of their current employees of course. I suggest that they might have a friend or former colleague who might be interested in the job and ask that they refer me to that person. The whole thing takes me about 30 seconds to say and it has yielded great results when the hiring manager refers me to someone they typically used to work with. Often, I end up keeping in touch with the hiring manager too and helping them.

Those are some of the most popular methods but certainly not an exhaustive list.

When I first got into recruitment back in 2000, the online job boards were already in existence although they weren’t nearly as prevalent or widespread as they are today. Social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and so on didn’t exist either. People weren’t used to seeing their name everywhere or making themselves as publicly available as they are these days.

Think about it: If someone had told you 5 years ago that by 2009, millions of people around the world would be telling anyone who cares what they’re doing at all hours of the day by typing 140 characters or less, would you have believed them?

In case you haven’t used Twitter before, that’s what I’m talking about.

Back in 2000, I still had job searchers frequently asking where I’d found their name because they were genuinely surprised when I cold called them but these days with the prevalence of Internet resources and how available our names are to the general public, it’s not as big a deal.

But in case you were wondering how recruiters found your name, now you know.