Check your e-reputation
Today, looking for a job does not simply involve posting your CV with a handwritten covering letter to a potential employer. You can now apply for jobs directly online through numerous job boards, social networks and recruitment sites. But remember: once you are present on the web, whether personally or professionally, you have an online reputation.
Your future employer can easily find you on the Internet to find out more about you. A quick search on Google will be enough to find your name, your Facebook page, your blog, your LinkedIn profile and the comments you might have made on forums.
The objective here is to be able to control the information which potential employers can find about you online, whilst increasing the visibility of your professional profile. Over time, details about us online increase. It should be said that our activity on social networks or on the sites we browse is increasingly common and encouraged. And finding nothing about a person is not necessarily a good sign.
HOW CAN WE BE SURE THAT THE TRACES WE LEAVE ONLINE ARE POSITIVE?
- Put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes on a regular basis and look for information about yourself. What do you find?
- Do regular housekeeping, in particular by deleting inactive or pointless spaces that you occupy. This also applies to the sites on which you are present and which are no longer necessarily in favour: remain alert to the best platforms.
- Use pseudonyms as your identity has no significance in your participation on e-commerce sites or spaces devoted to the things you like for example.
- Be proactive in your business sector! Forums reserved for professionals exist, and are free for you to join. Don’t hesitate to contribute, adding content yourself in order to share your expertise.
- When you post anything, check your spelling. This is an important detail which can be quickly remedied, and which can be damning if you do not pay attention.
- Make sure the information presented on your CV matches the information presented online. This is the point on which recruiters are most vigilant, as a lot of false information emerges during the recruitment process.
- Make sure the information presented on your CV matches the information presented online. This is the point on which recruiters are most vigilant, as a lot of false information emerges during the recruitment process.
- Set up alerts in order to follow new results including your name, take a look at Google Alerts! The web is changing fast, what is true on one day might not be true the next.
- Open online profiles which reflect what you are like, and offer pleasant, practical spaces to browse. Again, put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes!
- Don’t forget that electronic identities also concern companies. Find out about those companies to which you would like to apply; this will help you be up-to-date and target your applications more effectively.