Google Yourself

Or, if you prefer, “Yahoo” yourself.

Do you have an online presence? Is it the presence you wish to have?

If you have no online presence, you don’t exist. Well, to be fair, you do exist, of course, but you don’t exist to anyone who hears your name and wants to know more about you. They’re not going to call your mom, are they?

Start with LinkedIn and go from there. Create a profile. It won’t take that long, but it should be as thorough as possible and reflect the you who you want to present to the outside world. If that’s all you do, fine. You now exist.

But what if you do an online search for yourself and it’s not reflective of the you who you want to present to the world? Even your private pages, such as those on Facebook and Myspace, can sometimes be viewed by people you have not made friends with.

I was once doing a search for an executive assistant and I saw on someone’s myspace page where they described themselves as moody and seemed rather committed to staying that way. That person’s resume was in the garbage in about ten seconds.

So clean up your act or get an act if you don’t have one, and if there are things online that you cannot get taken down (party photos of you posted by other people, poorly thought-out or obscene comments made to blogs, etc.), your only option is to start adding content that shows you in the best light. Professional profiles, well thought-out comments to other people’s blogs, even articles about topics you are passionate about posted to websites can push the bad stuff down the page on a search of your name.

And if you don’t have the time, the skills, or the inclination to get an online presence that gives you a professional leg up, you always have the option to hire someone to do it for you, to write your profiles, your blog comments, your articles. As someone who has ghostwritten online content, I know you wouldn’t be the first and it would be worth it.