You WILL Get Googled…Are You Afraid?
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I tell my clients that they will be Googled as surely as it will rain in Portland. The latest survey said that 81% of employers WILL Google candidates.



Online reputation management is a critical piece of your online job search. There is just no getting around it.



Quick story, when I Googled my name 1 year ago, I was a convicted felon and a prolific New York Gynecologist, neither profession was something I wanted to be connected to. So I embarked on a campaign to bring the real “me” to Google’s first page. Now, my LinkedIn Profile comes up on Google’s first page.



Job Seekers, follow these easy steps below to finally get a handle on your internet reputation!



Assess the Current State of your Online Reputation


    1.Google your name and notice how many times the real you comes up on 1st page, and on the 1st 3 pages.


    2.Use Pipl.com to search your name…does the real you come up?



    3.Depending on these results, you may have a lot of work ahead of you to begin to rebuild your name. Use this data to figure out how much time you need to be spending on this project.




Bury the Dead, Plant a Tree



    1.Traditional SEO (search engine optimization) suggests that the more times your name shows up on highly reputable websites, the higher it will rank on the results page.



    2.So in order to knock down the stuff you don’t want, you have to build the stuff you do want.



    3.Collect a list of professional portfolio items that you can share…and post them on the appropriate sites. For example, if you have developed Power Point presentations, then load them onto SlideShare.com with your name all over it. If you wrote articles, then publish them on ezineArticles. If there are videos of you, put them on YouTube.



    4.Now, link as many of these shared portfolio items together. Link your Slideshare to your LinkedIn, Link your YouTube Video to your VisualCV and so on.



    5.Establish as many online portfolios as you can. In addition to LinkedIn, and VisualCV, you can set up Xing.com, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, Plaxo and hundreds more.



Don’t expect results right away, sometimes this can take several months depending on how many other search results you are trying to displace. Be patient and stay consistent in your efforts.