Online Reputation: How Does It Affect Your Job Search?

We live in an age where nearly everything we do is done online.  Want to talk to some old friends?  Log in to Facebook and get caught up.  Don't feel like going out for food?  You can order pizza on the Internet.  And nothing is more online-centric these days than the job search.

Employers also use the Internet for their research of candidates.  By simply Googling a prospective employee, they can find out almost everything they need to know.  What they see can speak volumes and, whether it's fair or not, you will be judged based on your online reputation.  Reputation management has become a big thing these days, but there's no need to pay money present a cleaner image of yourself.  You can do it all on your own.  Here are some tips:

• Do a Google search of your name.  If you ever made any "unfortunate" comments on Internet message boards, they will likely come up in the results.  This is your chance to get rid of them.
• Delete all embarrassing photos of yourself on Facebook.  If they are simply too good to get rid of, you can adjust your privacy settings so that only people in your network can see certain aspects of your profile.  Then again, that could raise suspicion...
• On a similar note, get rid of Tweets on your Twitter account that could be considered offensive.
• Make sure that whatever picture you use on your social media pages is presentable.  You obviously aren't going to use one of those embarrassing pictures we talked about, but it shouldn't be a low quality picture either.  If you don't have a really good one, have someone take a new one.