Cleaning Up Your Online Profile

Your worst nightmare has come true. Mr. and Ms. Potential Future Employers have sent their hack-crazy IT guys on a mission—find out about you and report back with all the juicy details. Their first target: Facebook. Or MySpace, Bebo, or any other social networking site that has snapshots of you pole dancing topless in red-Solo-cup-double-fisting glory, with the requisite Sharpie marks proclaiming your love for farm animals still legible on your forehead (that was one helluva night, eh?). You shouldn’t have fallen asleep with your shoes on, no, but more importantly you definitely shouldn’t have allowed your kindly friend to post this disreputable version of you on the internet. Think about this: a recent CNET article stated that one in five employers use the internet to research job candidates. But don’t wig too much. We’re all human and employers know that. Going crazy and trying to slash and burn your digital past isn’t necessary. Instead, let’s just see where you stand online so that you can put your best foot forward on the job-hunt (and avoid any unnecessary trouble once you're employed).

Now is as good a time as any to perform a thorough spring cleaning, so here are some of the places where your name may pop up on the 'net, as well as solutions for taking control of your online identity:

Social Networking Sites

Jeff Kirsch, Vice President of D.C.-based NGO Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, said that they have recently started to use the internet as a background-checking tool. “We’re not looking for anything specific, but rather seeing if there are any ‘red flags’ that should concern us, or tell us something that should be checked out with the applicant. Raving about drugs and alcohol, for example, would be a problem for us.”

Underhanded? Perhaps. But it does happen, and you can minimize your chances of preemptive elimination with a quick revamp. This site and this list of dos and don’ts have good advice on how to enjoy social networking sites without risking your future. It helps to review your profiles with the discerning eye of your employer. Don’t just de-tag those incriminating pictures—remove questionable wall posts/slideshows, as well. Kirsch elaborates, “Friends complaining that the person is always late or unreliable would make us take notice. And while we probably wouldn’t make a hiring decision just on the basis of something we saw on an applicant’s site, it seems to be another way of getting a fuller picture of an applicant in whom we’re about to invest a lot of time and energy.”

Making a profile private is easy. We all know those irritating MySpacers who we can’t stalk because their profiles are set to private. Well, they’ve got the right idea, and probably the right job, so take a clue—the privacy option is under “account settings”. The only people who will see a private profile are the people you add, and everyone else will just see your picture, so opt for the fully-clothed shot. On Facebook, the "My Privacy" on the top right tab has a long list of savory anti-stalk options, allowing you to control who can and can’t see every aspect of your profile, or to create a limited profile to display to non-Facebook friends.

Needless to say, it’s really up to you to decide how private you need and want to be. If you are applying for a job with the government or a very conservative bank, for example, you may have greater concerns than others about employers or co-workers viewing your profile and pictures. But even if you're not that concerned, there's really no way to justify missing out on an opportunity because you refuse to take down that profile pic of you killing a keg stand—just be smart and utilize those privacy settings!

Blogs

Some of us use blogs to update the family on our cross-country travels; some of us want friends to see how hot we look in our new jeans; and still others use this new digital phenomenon as an online diary to try and sort out those pesky existential dilemmas (I personally have at least one a week). However you use the blog, be smart about it. For example, if you’re applying for a job with the Wal-Mart Corporation, political rants about the criminal nature of capitalism are probably going to raise a red flag. Same goes for your derisive blog about the “no-talent-ass-clown” in HR who interviewed you for a job yesterday. Search keywords and key phrases that may be an employer turn-off (“lazy,” “late,” “tequila bender,” “Yanni’s amazing new EP,” various curse words), and try to avoid egregious bad-mouthing of former employers.