Resumes are not the only place employers go to to get information on you. We live in an era of transparency and tremendous access. While you can't prevent people from learning about you on their own, there are still a few things you CAN control.

Nowadays, HR professionals and Hiring Managers are investigating who prospective candidates really are. Not all companies conduct formal background checks. But most do some level of baseline checking via the Internet and/ or their own personal networks.

Here are some things you CAN control:

Email address. It seems like a small point, but a weird or off color email address is a turn off. You should absolutely edit the personal email you use for your job search if it is something ridiculous (ex: doctorlove@hotmail.com, sweetums@gmail.com, badassgansta@yahoo.com).

A Facebook or MySpace page. Employers will see this! Give it a complete review to check everything that is on that page to avoid any discriminating pictures or commentary. Either make the appropriate changes or be OK with the fact that you wouldn't want to work for a company who can't accept you for who you really are.

A blog. Same deal here. It's great to be able to publish your real thoughts to the world. But you really have to look at this through the eyes of an employer and make sure you aren't putting yourself in a bad position.

Responses to other people's blogs. If you use your full name when posting responses, this can be found and will expose your opinions, level of professionalism and if you have a confrontational nature to discussing things.

Extra curricular activity. This is great if you run marathons or volunteer for an important charity as these sites get heavily indexed and this will come up on a search of your name. However, so will the other events that you may not want your employer to see.

Name dropping. Professional networking has changed the rule book when it comes to reference checking. It is quite common that employers may call people you list within your professional profiles (like a LinkedIn account), even though you may not have listed these people as actual references. Be careful about providing names of people that you don't intend on using as references because, once you list them, they are free game. If you do list names of coworkers in your network, you may want to make them aware of your search so they know how to handle calls from employers.

Online identity. Go ahead and Google yourself. That's not being narcissistic. It's being smart. See what's being said that's associated with your name. While you can't control what people may say about you or what other people have done that have your same exact name, you can set the record straight. Companies like Naymz, LinkedIn, or ZoomInfo all allow you to go in and create a correct and updated profile about you. So, if there is incorrect information or undesirable commentary floating around about you, the best way to deal with this is to publish your own details.