This posting is my continuation of my earlier posting ‘Tips to make a good impression in an interview’.

I asked, ‘what’s the best way you consider for background check of a prospective employee?’, to a friend who is a recruiter in a company. I was surprised with his answer when he replied ‘google search’ as his favourite tool for background check.

I realised most of us use internet extensively and based on our surfing/ interest/ postings/ comments an image is portrayed which can affect our professional and personal life. I found the concept very interesting and hence this post on the importance of ‘online image’.

Adding on, I recently read somewhere that an employee took leave because of sickness and her colleagues found her active on twitter and facebook updating her day activity including where she went for shopping, lunch and night out. You can imagine that why she was not happy when she went to the office next day.

Furthermore you need to keep your online image simple and clean. As I mentioned earlier that a quick search on google, facebook or yahoo can give a summary impression of a person. Its good to have parties and share photos, info etc. with your friends online but you need to be very careful when you present yourself in front of world. It would not be a good impression if prospective employer/client finds you on facebook with bottles of beer. So search google with your name, email ids or phone no. Do you like the result? Analyze what image of your will it create on employer’s mind.

Agreed that we use these social sites to connect with our personal friends and share some personal activity but there is a professional aspect also attached to it as these sites are like open book.  You never know, how people can use these sites to know about their prospective/current employee or client. So getting a new job or sustaining in the existing one can be decided by your online activity.

Here are the few ways to gauge your online image:

Be careful while posting online

If you are found on web suggesting ’10 ways to ditch your girlfriend’, or ‘how to fool your boss’ it wont be a good impression. I still remember few years back when I searched google with the e-mail id of one our then senior colleague, I (in fact all of us) got to know that he is looking for partner. The said person became a topic of many a joke in the office, which is certainly not desirable.

I have an account on linkedin, facebook, twitter,  some communities, maintain a blog and a website. I always take extreme care while writing anything over the web. Content travels faster on the web. Some discourteous words or drunken, sexual, violent images or a wrong communal or social remark is enough to spoil your image over the internet.

In fact I would suggest that join some forum/community related to your domain knowledge and participate in discussion, knowledge sharing.

Use decent ids for mail

I can assure you that ids like sexychamp@…, harrypotter007@., …hunkydude@…,  hottysweety@…, will turn your prospective employer off.

Avoid using complicated e-mail, with irrelevant names, some slang or some inappropriate intensions. Always use your name as an email id. Your name may be common so you can also add some number at the end to make it unique with you name. Like sanjaykumar3@… or other variations

Be careful while posting resume on job sites

During the beginning of my career one day my HR Manager came to me and asked why are you looking for job change? Are you not satisfied here? I wondered how he got to know that I am looking for change. The reason was, she had found my resume on a popular job site.

Your name and your current employer name can appear on the search of jobsites like naukri, monster etc. So make sure to keep your few details confidential.

To sumarise, I will emphasise that revolution in technology has provided us with the numerous ways to be connected with the people. People are part of different communities  like facebook, twitter, orkut, myspace etc. to connect with friends and share personal life. But you should be careful enough while sharing your personal incidents over the internet as it is directly related to your professional online image.