Is Google Your Resume’s Enemy #1?
No doubt you’ve done a lot of living in the past decade or so. Chances are, some of that living has been recorded for posterity on the Internet – whether you remember writing it, posing for it, or simply putting it “out there.”
Time to take stock of your Internet life. Type your name into a Google search box and see what appears. Is there anything about you online that may:
- Humiliate you?
- Pigeonhole you?
- Cause people to discredit or discriminate against you?
- Make you miss the career opportunity of a lifetime?
According to an article posted on the Society for Human Resource Management’s website, “Digital Dirt” – the stuff employers find out about you with a simple Google search, let alone some of the more sophisticated means – is fast becoming one of the most sinister forces against executives attempting to transition to other industries or opportunities.
Kathy Gurchiek’s article shoots this warning flare out to executives thinking about their next career leap:
The long shelf life of content on the Internet and the increasing number of employers using the web to learn more about job candidates will mean that higher numbers of potential job candidates will be prejudged or eliminated from consideration based on “digital dirt,” predicts Dave Opton, CEO and founder of ExecuNet, a senior executive business, career and recruiting network.
“It really has to do with the degree to which employers are utilizing technology in terms of screening applicants even before [applicants] even pick up the phone and call [the employer],” Opton told HR News.
ExecuNet’s 15th annual forecast is based on annual trend forecasts as well as monthly, and sometimes quarterly, electronic surveys of its 25,000 members whose average age is 49 and who are executive-level employees.
Can you undo what you’ve done online? Maybe, and maybe not. But you should at least be aware of what hiring managers can find out about you, when they plug your name into a search engine.
And who knows…that trip to Cabo back in 1998 could be the surprise link that makes a hiring manager pick up the phone and call.
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