Online Presence

Your Online Presence

Your 'online presence' can either be helpful in your career search or it can be a limiting factor.

There are many avenues recruiters use to find or research candidates, from traditional resume sites such as NACElink and Monster.com to Google searches, social networking sites and even book reviews.

Are you fully utilizing your online identity in your career search?

Social Networking Sites / Professional Networking Sites

This should be a no brainer by now. Remove/restrict potentially embarrasing information.

However you can use social networking sites to your benefit as well. Perhaps join groups that are professionally oriented. You can use these to show your community/organization involvement as well.

Remember that sites such as Facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn offer employers an insight into your personal and professional life.

Did you know the Michigan Tech Alumni Association has a LinkedIn group? You could use this to find contacts within your target companies.

In addition, LinkedIn has a new site for recent grads to get started. http://grads.linkedin.com

Google/Search Engines

Does your department provide you with a website? If so, you may want to publish your resume on it as well.

Here are some typical Google searches:

site:mtu.edu filetype:doc resume

site:mtu.edu inurl:resume

Try searching for your mtu email address, aol/yahoo/msn screen name, etc and see what shows up. Is it good? Bad?

Not finding anything? Then neither are employers. You may want to consider strategically placing yourself on the web.

Other Tips

Book reviews on Amazon.com, etc. These can offer employers a glimpse of your writing style, your interests, and your understanding of a particular subject.

Online Forums. Find an online forum in the field you are pursuing. Start discussions that you wouldn't mind your potential employer seeing.

Search Google for: Engineering forums

Search Google for: Bioinformatics forums

Blogging. Again, this can demonstrate your writing style/proficiency or lack thereof. This includes sites such as LiveJournal, Blogger, and Technorati.

Email Address. Is your email address on your resume? Are you using a suitable email address on your resume? If not, you should get a free email account with a name that is more professional.

Are you a recent alum? Join HuskyLink, the online alumni community for Michigan Tech. This will allow you to connect with other Michigan Tech alumni. You can also take advantage of the MTU Alumni Association groups on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Here is a link on managing your online reputation.

Word of caution: You should refrain from posting your cell phone number on your resume if you post it online such as on your personal home page and public boards such as Monster or CareerBuilder.

Word of caution: Once you post information on the web, removing it is very difficult if not impossible.