How to Avoid Career Suicide in the Online World

Online, November 20, 2009 (Newswire.com) - In the business of job hunting and recruiting, both parts of the process are relying on and using the internet, social media and blogosphere more than ever. This of course, is a natural business evolution. No problems there.

However, more and more prospective employers are not only finding candidates and prospects online, but they are also making negative choices based on what any one individual may have posted on certain social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others.

If you are a jobseeker, I implore you to conduct a "vanity search" using your name in a search engine. Find out, if you, or anyone you know, has posted negative comments, or portrayed you in a bad light online. This can be fatal to a job search.

Should you find anything negative before a prospective employer does, get it offline as soon as you can, and take steps to ensure nothing like that happens again.

If your CV is online, be it on LinkedIn, Monster or VisualCV.com, have a third party check it for you to make sure there are no glaring errors and that all of the information posted is correct.

Should you use a photograph or image to represent you on whatever media, ensure that it's "work safe", that it is not offensive to anyone and that again, a third party has approved it.

In Ireland recently, a candidate for a local council election found less than politically correct pictures of her from Facebook splashed across the national media. These pictures were in fact from a friend's page, not her own. This is a great example of how not managing your online brand can tarnish a reputation. (As it happens, this particular candidate was elected. Just.)

In the future, tomorrow's graduates, who are extremely switched on to media such as social networking, may find youthful misadventure coming back to haunt them if they are not made aware of the potential harm to a career that this can have.

In conclusion, it is vital that this element of risk assessment through "vanity searching" be performed regularly to maintain control of your online brand and avoid a potentially disastrous outcome.

To learn more about CV and Jobsearching advice visit www.mynewcv.ie or contact [email protected]