Your legal name is your employment passport.
Have you done all that you can to protect your employability from potentially damaging Google search results?
We’ve all heard it before. Once it’s on the web, it’s there forever. Well, what if I were to tell you, maybe not?
If you have extensive Google search results for your professional and personal activities, do these links accurately represent who you are today? Or are they just a miscellaneous assortment of links that show things you did in the past but do not tell the story of who you have become? Do you have a default brand that isn’t really telling your current narrative?
I know what you are thinking. Why would prospective employers search online for information BEFORE they ever even spoke with me? Because they can. Employment laws have not kept up with technology. The law always lags behind social innovation. So potential employers and hiring managers search candidates before even speaking to them and deny employment based on perceived search results.
We are all familiar with bias in selection based on other non job related criteria such as gender, race, sexual orientation etc… A new frontier in bias in selection and assessment is the use of online search results to deny employment. Denying employment opportunities based on a quick review of a candidate’s Google search results is not really legally defensive. People do it but won’t admit to it. The research coming out is indicating that there is no correlation between a candidate’s Facebook profile and employee job performance. Job seekers must include aggressively managing their online career brand as a key component of their job search strategy.
How to Clean Up Your Online Career Brand
It’s time for all of us to be the architects of our online legacy. And that includes our online brand. People unknowingly let other tag them on publicly posted Facebook photos, upload silly or potentially damaging videos, tweet indiscriminately, get into online feuds…you name it. After a recent scandal involving a female celebrity, I went to her Facebook page to view the comments. They were terrifying – death threats, slurs, profanity – and posted publicly by people displaying their legal names. If I can view this, so can a potential employer.
Let’s say you just want something old taken down from a website. Just ask the webmaster. Deleting old content is not a priority for webmasters. Don’t be discouraged if they are initially non responsive. In my experience, they were very happy to help especially if you reference your job search. Once you get a site to delete content, and have confirmed the content is truly gone, submit the link to the Google URL removal tool to expedite reindexing of your Google search results.
Please note this does not apply to publications and reporting by news organizations – newspapers, tv stations etc….reporting on arrests, convictions and investigations. It doesn’t apply information published by public record aggregator websites such as bankruptcies.
Key Lessons For Protecting Your Employability
Since your legal name is your employment passport, anything you do that is tagged to your legal name online affects your employability.
Lesson #1- Aggressively protect your employability.
Stale content – bios, images, videos, podcasts, etc…just stay up there for years even when you have evolved tremendously. This is a huge issue given the amount of content people are posting before they ever enter the workforce.
Lesson #2 – Potential employers will scroll way past page 4 and beyond for links.
Reputation management companies like to say that few people will scroll down past page 2. Don’t risk it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=facebook-snooping-on-job
Lesson #3- Hiring Managers will google search you before they ever phone interview you.
A legally questionable practice but unfortunately it is the job seeker reality.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1843142/using-facebook-screen-potential-hires-can-get-you-sued
Lesson #4 – Be very careful about using your legal name that you use for employment as a comedian, artist, musician or even in political activities.
Just use a stage name or alter ego and save your legal name for employment purposes only.
Lesson #5 – Do not sign any release allowing someone to post content with you in it – especially videos and podcasts etc… since you won’t be able to control its removal.
Limit the information that you will not be able to update and/or remove. It’s that simple.
Lesson #6 – The internet is dramatically affecting our ability to experiment on the sly
Millions of people pay their bills with a day job but also indulge their creative side through a side business, music, theater, comedy, politics, etc… Guess what? If your friends and customers can find this information online, so can a potential hiring manager. And they might hate your politics or that you do community theater.
What about that classic right of passage of being young and experimenting with careers, politics and beliefs? Unless you do all of your personal life off the grid, Google will tell employers exactly what you are doing creatively, politically and socially and that has huge implications for society.
CareerRx ProTips for Protecting Your Employability
- If you are a parent with kids in college who will need to enter the workforce soon, it’s never too early to start the clean up of their search results.
- If you find yourself in a bad online brand situation for any reason, it’s essential that you engage a reputation management SEO professional to assist. Beware of any bold claims, contracts and set fees as results can be very difficult to achieve.
- If you want to do cultivate a controversial alter ego creatively or politically, use a stage name and do no comingle your legal name with these activities.
It’s never too late to protect your employability. For more information about how to jump start your job search using the CareerRx program for job seekers, go to www.thecareerlauncher.com.
About The Career Launcher
After spending years managing Talent Acquisition for Fortune 500 companies, The Career Launcher created her CareerRx™ program along with ResumeGenie™ for resume optimization.
In CareerRx™, we reveal how recruiting and job search has been transformed by recruiting technology including applicant tracking systems, social media, LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed.com and how we must change our definition of “job search” to launch and continuously promote an Online Career Brand.
With over 20 years of hands on direct recruitment experience, The Career Launcher demystifies the online job application process and offers job seekers a comprehensive program to jump start their job searches. She provides an insider’s perspective to what companies are seeking from candidates in the interview process.
It’s time for you to go beyond the resume. When it comes to your career, you can’t sit on the sidelines in the social media revolution. Click here to jumpstart your job search today with CareerRx™.