Google Yourself

I can’t even tell you how often I’ve said this lately and not just at Career Days with college students. Adults who insist they don’t have an online identity are shocked when I Google their name and all kinds of things come up.

Even if you aren’t currently looking for a job, you need to be checking yourself out online at least monthly.

Don’t just stop at Google. Try Bing, Yahoo and anything else you can think of. Go beyond page two. See what’s out there. You can’t be proactive unless you know.

I tried comparing it to a credit report only to find that even fewer people get their credit reports as Google themselves. Which is just as bad! If you might get to use a company credit card or drive a company car, your employer is going to check your credit. If you don’t know what’s on the report how can you tell them your identity was stolen or the credit card was in your ex-wife’s name?

Aside from the main search engines, should I recommend checking your name in other places?