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Manage your online reputation

Posted on 13th April 2015

We Recruiters will often go online to find out more about our prospective candidates. Checking out your online presence gives us an insight to you and how suited you may be to the prospective role. 

But what comes up if someone Googles your name? Is it something you want an employer to see? Since this is common practice these days, it’s a good idea for you to take ownership of your online image. We want to see the best side of you!  

And remember it's not a matter of keeping some aspects of your life out of sight. If you're aware that employers are likely to check you out on the internet, then why not make sure there's information about you that you do want them to see? 

At the Maine Group, we love to share our interests outside of work with each other! Check out our ‘Meet the Team’ page and you’ll find all sorts of crazy facts about us! Employers often like to know about your hobbies and interests.

Alter your Facebook and Twitter privacy settings

We’re definitely not saying you can’t post about all of the crazy things you did last Saturday night, we’re just advising to keep it private!  We all have a Facebook and Twitter page these days, and we use these sites to share our personal thoughts/photos/videos with our friends. Whilst it’s fun to do this and you want all of your friends to see, there may be some things that you probably don’t want a recruiter to stumble across.

For instance, what will they think if they see an old post about you complaining about your busy day at work? They might justifiably question your attitude and decide that you aren't the person they are looking for. So keep it private!

Sign up to LinkedIn

Recently, LinkedIn has become more and more popular with recruiters, and it’s rare to find one who doesn’t use it these days!

LinkedIn is a more jobs-focused social platform, where people network with other professionals in various industries and build contacts that can help them climb the career ladder.

It's also a great place to showcase your professional and academic achievements, so this could be an ideal tool for letting recruiters who are looking for information about you see what you've done, where you are now and where you want to go in the future. We would definitely advise you to sign up, if you haven’t done so already. It’s also a great way for you to find new roles, company’s (ourselves included) are posting vacancies on here now too.

Review other user-generated content

It's not just social media where you leave an online footprint. You might have a blog, regularly contribute to a message board, leave comments on review sites and post on news stories. If you have accounts on sites like these, go through your contributions and check what you've written -  you may want to delete certain comments, and maybe even your entire account -  if you don't think it reflects well on you. 

You never know what comes up when you google your name!