STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE ONLINE NETWORKING
ONLINE CHECKS
The reason we do online checks is to ensure there is nothing negative or damaging if someone was to do a search against us online. Doing online checks is an important step you need to take anytime you are attempting to build an online presence for yourself
To understand your online reputation – there are 2 different things you should review
Content created by you (social media accounts, personal webpages, blogs or online postings, etc)
Content that you’re tagged into (social media profiles, websites, other online content, etc)
It is important to do a thorough check of all of your social media accounts!
Firstly, you should check the content on your online accounts to make sure there is nothing that might reflect negatively on you. This will include things that might come across as sexist, chauvinistic, homophobic, or culturally insensitive. As most people use their social media accounts solely for the purposes of social activity and interaction with friends, there may be a lot of things that otherwise wouldn’t occur to you if you are trying to create a stylized branded image for the first time. If you are new to this a good method is to ask friends or family how your social media profiles look after you have edited them, as they may be able to give you an outsider’s perspective on how this comes across to others. It is important to remember that once you decide to do this, these are no longer online accounts that you simply use for social purposes, they become professional online tools used for the purposes of networking. It means that you should delete or amend any social media posts that could be taken the wrong way or seen as unfavourable in the eyes of people you don’t know. Topics such as religion, race, politics, and even sports teams are a few of the main areas you should avoid making significant commentary on. Remember that people searching you will probably only take 5 – 10 minutes to try and learn more about you, which means they will make quick, superficial decisions regarding your personality based on the things they see in front of them. It might not be fair but there is a definite element of genericism involved in the job searching process both at the networking and the interview level. That’s why by following these simple steps; taking the time to evaluate personal and work-related content, and by taking the time to prepare an effective job search and online networking strategy, you can give yourself a real edge, even putting yourself ahead of more seasoned, experienced candidates
The best advice is that if you are trying to create an effective online persona, you should generally stay away from saying anything negative – keep it all positive. Or if you feel you really need to make a point but just know it’s going to sound negative, make a little extra effort and put it across in a constructive way instead
Another thing it is essential you do is check your privacy settings. Do this for every online account that you have. This way people will see only what you want them to see, and it is another effective way of filtering content if you don’t want to delete or amend certain things
You should also keep an eye on your friends list too. On some media sites this is also viewable and can lead employers and recruiters to form impressions of you based on this. With that in mind, review who’s on there. If there’s someone on it who you don’t really talk to – review their media page. If you feel it might reflect detrimentally on your own media account, consider whether it’s worth friending them on that site or not
If you really enjoy going online with friends you can always create a separate online account using a pseudonym with a different email address – although there is still a chance that employers and recruiters might come across this due to the fact that on many of these social media sites much of the content is linked through friends, through tags, and through other details such as location, school, interests, etc…
The other thing you should always do is google your name, address, work details, and any personal details you can think of just to see if anything appears online. You can only take steps to fix something if you’re aware of it first
If you come across 3rd party content on a social media site that you feel may reflect negatively and you want it removed, start by contacting the account holder and politely ask them to remove the content. A straightforward way to do this would simply be to inform them that you’re looking for work, and that you feel the content might reflect negatively on you and could jeopardise your chances. A fundamental step with this approach is that you always remember to be polite and nonabrasive when making such a request. Approaching people in this way will give you an air of professionalism, and it will also lend legitimacy to what you’re asking, and as such in many instances it will yield much better results. Conversing in a professional manner is also a good practice when dealing with people online anyway as in most instances there tends to be an audit trail and record of what is said. You will have to deal with different types of people, some may be helpful, but others may not be. If you ask and the person refuses, don’t reply back with threats; instead contact the site administrator and see if you can get the content removed that way. If the content is on an external website, the first step is always to contact the site’s administrator anyway. If they are unhelpful and you live in the European Union, you can file what is known as RTBF (Right to be forgotten request). This allows European citizens to request that search engines such as Google remove entries from their search results that lead to content that is irrelevant, excessive, or unnecessarily defamatory
This will remove search listings on the main search engines like Google and Bing, making the content unsearchable. If this fails, or is not comprehensive enough for you, there are online companies that specialise in removing personal or defamatory online content from the web. A simple online search will bring up listings for these companies. However, they are not cheap and will require a fee for their services