Welcome to Part One of Preparing for OCI (On Campus Interviews). Part One will discuss your online reputation, and offer pointers and resources to make sure that your online reputation is in great shape. Or, if it isn’t, how to change it. Part Two of this three part series will discuss your résumé, and finally Part Three will discuss a few miscellaneous tips and tricks for using the web to increase your chances of landing your dream job.

Damage Control

The first thing you need to do, right now, is do a search for your name using Google, Bing, Yahoo! or all of the above. What comes up? If your name is John Smith, you may not have much luck with the top spot. Try plugging in your city or school to find the more relevant hits. Before we get into doing what you can to have favorable search results, you need to identify any embarrassing information in the first few pages. This is so you have a nice survey of your online reputation before you go about trying to improve it. So, take a look at those results. Are there public photos on Facebook of your extra-curricular activities in college? Tweets that may not be employer-appropriate? Those are easy to get rid of. If there are things on your social media profiles showing up online that you don’t like, just edit your privacy settings.

The more difficult search results are those you do not have control over. Maybe a post in a forum that you don’t want a potential employer to know about? Or, as in my case, a photo from an old high school play. No matter what they are, you have to deal with them. You have two options: bury the results or get them taken down. Both take time, and neither will completely erase the information once it is posted online. However, now that you know about the potentially embarrassing information, you can prepare a response to any inquiries.

Employers will look you up on the internet, especially as you get further along in the OCI process. Have explanations ready for anything that you think needs to be explained. At the same time, don’t make excuses. If there is a photo of you doing something stupid that you can’t get rid of, just say you were doing something stupid, don’t blame the picture taker. Finally, be honest.

Creating a reputation

Now that you know what is already out there about you, you can determine exactly what you need to do to create a sound reputation. Maybe things already look good and you don’t need to do anything. If so, congratulations!

Let’s assume you want to beef up your online reputation a little bit. Two great places to start are Laura Bergus’ Social Media Best Practices for Students and Lifehacker’s Guide to “Having a Say in What Google Says About You.” The idea in both articles is to create content with your name in it that makes you look good.

The best way to grab the top search result for your name is to lock down your domain name. It’s very easy to do and pretty inexpensive. From there, you can use a hosted WordPress account, Blogger, Google Pages, or any other number of free platforms to create content on your site without buying a hosting plan. Some people may not be able to get their name because it was already taken. That’s where you can get a little creative. The more you stray from your actual name, the less the site will help you in search results, so try to stay close. For instance, try getting just yourlastname.com or yourfirstname.com. Use your formal name instead of the shortened version.

Social media profiles are the next best way to grab the top spot in search results. LinkedIn is probably the most ubiquitous and professional, but places like Google Profiles, Justia.com, and others work great too. Make sure to be professional and include as much important information as you can. Laura makes a great point about creating your own website or social media profile:

These…steps will have you well on your way to taking control of your online identity and will cost much less in time, effort and cash than mailing out a hundred hard-copy résumés. Now, your ongoing responsibility is to keep the online information active, at a minimum have it up to date, as you would your printed résumé. Continue to add connections as you meet people. Add experiences when you volunteer at school or in your community. Most importantly, be willing to promote what is there. Many potential employers will only see your profile after some other preliminary contact, and in such case you want to make sure they find it. Search engines tend to favor social media content (remember this can mean Facebook and even MySpace as well as LinkedIn, unless those profiles are private). Employers that are internet savvy know that a few minutes browsing the web is worth many more that they might have spent on the phone checking into you, so point them to the right place.

Like Laura says, you have to keep these profiles up to date with your experience. But your online presence should do more than repeat what is on your résumé. Your reputation online should reflect more about who you are, what you are interested in and what you know. If you want to be a tax attorney, start a blog or write for a website about tax. Maybe health law is your issue. You can do guest posts on various sites about your interest. Whatever you do, make sure your main page, wherever that is, links to all of it so potential employers can see what you are doing.

The internet is the greatest tool out there for your job search. Make it work for you not against you.

Related posts:

1. Preparing for OCI Part III: Land that Dream Job
2. Preparing for OCI Part II: Use Your Resume Effectively
3. What Career Service Office Advisors Should be Telling Students About Social Media [Part 1/2]
4. Calling Law Student Contributors for Social Media Law Student
5. Online Privacy v. Defamation Law
6. Social Media Best Practices for Law Schools (Part 2)
7. What Career Service Office Advisors Should be Telling Students About Social Media [Part 2/2]
8. Social Media and Your Summer Job
9. How Cyber-Stalking Can Get You a Job
10. Social Media Best Practices for Law Schools (Part 1)