I consider myself moderately savvy when it comes to social media. Several months ago, I went to check my name online to see what potential employers would find. I put my name into Google and guess what I found, one of my daughter’s pages. She had named it after me thinking that no one would ever look for me online. Surprise, surprise.
To look for your potential surprises, go to Google and type in your name. Try a couple of different iterations, full first and full last, first initial and full last. Click through the entries (all the pages). You want to see everything that is found. No surprises, thank you.
If you have a common name, that can be a good or a bad thing. A potential employer may not be able to find you (good or bad?) If you WANT the employer to find you, you are going to need to make it easy for them. Include all your contact links on your resume and in the signature line of your emails.
In addition, I think it is good to think carefully about what information you want to show. Not only can employers find you but so can spammers and sales people of all sorts. Protect yourself. My next blog will talk more about security.
My contact links:
https://hellinthehallway.net
http://twitter.com/dmourey
http://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmourey
http://www.google.com/profiles/deborah.mourey
Other place to look for yourself.
• Facebook http://www.facebook.com
• Zoominfo http://www.zoominfo.com
• Spoke http://www.spoke.com
• Pipl http://www.pipl.com
If you know other places to research your online presence, please comment.
Fun and Interesting Free/Inexpensive Things to Do In Rochester
I love public art. Remember “Horses on Parade”? Rochester was alive with public art. If you like graffiti, sculpture, stained glass and more. Look at this site. Some of our own local talent, many of whom have world wide reputations, are represented. See Wendell Castle, Albert Paley, Paul Knoblauch and many others.
http://www.rochesterpublicart.com/public_art/?page=1
The Finger Lakes Travel Maven
June 7, 2009Thought you’d like to know that Rochester’s Richard Margolis is continuing to photograph and build the online archive of Rochester’s Public Art. For an overview of Richard’s involvement in this project, visit: http://bit.ly/my97A
Zoe
June 9, 2009Great advice! A guy in my program actually got fired from student teaching (and thus cannot get certified) because he had a picture on facebook of himself with a beer. I recently made all of my pictures private; it’s just not worth the risk!
Also, I’d consider you much more than moderately savvy when it comes to social media!
Sarah Freligh
June 12, 2009I’m enjoying your site!
Deborah
June 12, 2009Sarah,
Thank you so much. You may know i am a friend of Penny’s. I respect your work so much. Best to you, enjoy jazz fest if you follow it. Deb Mourey
Sarah Freligh
June 12, 2009Thanks so much! I have the good fortune, for the rest of the year, to write a lot, as I’m the (very grateful) recipient of a poetry fellowship from the NEA.
I remember meeting you (most recently) at Jane and Richard’s party a couple years ago. I like your philosophy very much and yes, I do plan to catch some good jazz in the next week.
David Coons
June 14, 2009Hi Deb,
Great tips. It is very important to control what your name looks like on the internet. Go to http://www.google.com/profiles to create your own profile on Google. The advantage is that you will show up as the LAST entry on the FIRST page when you google search your name per information that YOU input.
Thanks again.
David Coons