Sponsored Post by Morgan Hunt Recruitment
One of the most hotly discussed trends in the Careers and Recruitment market is the use of social media and online networks. First thing that springs to mind with regards to online and social recruitment is online reputation.
Online reputation isn’t anything mystical or secretive. It isn’t what Klout or Kred score you have, not even the Twitter followers or Facebook friends you have. Your online reputation can be made by putting a couple of things together. Remember, those same things can break your online reputation too.
In this post, I will offer you 3 quick ways to check whether your online reputation gets a thumbs up or down and how to improve it if it’s not up to scratch.
1. Online Reputation and Google Search
OK. I know this isn’t rocket science. But honestly, how many times do you do it?
After every job application or resume that I sent off to an advertised vacancy I used to check myself on Google, just to see what my online reputation shows, and what the recruiter would see, if he or she ‘Googled’ me right away. There have been some stories that I didn’t want to be associated with anymore and images that embarrassed me . Google yourself and see what comes up. Try to clear up those things.
2. Check Your LinkedIn Profile for Spelling Mistakes
Recruiting agents love LinkedIn. Graduates are encouraged to love LinkedIn too. I love LinkedIn and just for graduates, I have produced this guide on 7 steps to get started on LinkedIn.
There is one common mistake that can hurt your Online Reputation badly – that is spelling and grammatical errors.
Mistake 1 – Classic LinkedIn mistake. Your name initials are in lower case letters. Now, I am no grammar expert, but even I know a proper name begins with upper case letters. I’ve had a few LinkedIn requests from people whose names are in lower case letters and my first thought was: press the shift + ignore button.
Mistake 2 – Read your LinkedIn profile summary, experience and other sections. If you have a spelling mistake that will hurt your online reputation, get rid of it now! No recruiter want to speak to graduates with such basic mistakes.
3. Online Reputation and Profile Pictures.
I don’t think I have to say much here. I will give you two examples.
On Twitter I read a tweet from a recent graduate. She was doing the right thing by promoting herself socially and asking for a job by listing her qualities, etc. Problem – she had a picture of when she was on some beach, maybe in France, in clothes suited for it. C’mon, graduates, you know you have to be a bit professional. That is unacceptable.
On Facebook, one of my friend had his profile picture as himself (probably drunk) with a traffic cone on his head. Momentarily, fun and a good laugh, but his profile settings were lax. Which meant that when I Googled him, the image came up in Google images. Crazy stuff. When I informed him of it, he sorted his profile settings. His online reputation must have plummeted in front of recruiters for all that while!
This is the key to keeping your online reputation clean. You have to keep track of it.
It can plummet as well as increase with some basic work-out on your side, so why not do it? Some of the tips in this post: I didn’t know about them. At some point someone informed me of the importance of online reputation and I took notice.
Remember, your online reputation is key – not only in your graduate job search, but otherwise too.
This post was sponsored by Morgan Hunt.
Morgan Hunt’s charities and fundraising division supplies specialist professionals on an interim, contract and permanent basis across the not-for-profit sector to include charity, arts and education sector.
