Introduction

Your online reputation affects your career in a lot of different ways. This is because an overwhelming majority of employers check the social media profiles of their candidates before hiring them. Several other companies make it a point to google their candidates as part of their applicant screening process. 

If you are wondering do employers check your social media? Then the answer is yes, they do! More than 51% employers monitor the social media profiles of their existing employees to ensure that they are not disclosing trade secrets or doing things that break the law in some way. 

Your online activities whether you like it or not are under surveillance and that’s why you need to ensure that your online reputation always presents the best version of yourself. This perhaps explains why so many working professionals hire online brand reputation management services.

Here’s How To Find What Your Online Reputation Says About You

 If you want to find out what your online reputation says about you, then you need to do what any employer who wishes to hire you, would do. You need to log out of your browser and then do a quick google search on yourself. You need to google yourself with the help of identifiers so that you get more accurate and comprehensive results. You need to be more concerned over the results that will appear on the first page, because that’s the farthest people will usually go while searching you. You need to then analyze if your online reputation presents you as a polished professional or not.

6 Ways To Improve Your Online Reputation

A negative online reputation can affect your career reputation in a lot of different ways. It makes a bad first impression on your potential employers and can damage your relationship with current employers. Thankfully, there are a couple of ways that you can use to improve your online image.

1. Limit Who Can See Your Posts:

There are many social media platforms in which you can change the privacy settings. The privacy settings let you limit the access to the things that you share. Once you change these settings, your employers won’t be able to see the things that you post. Can employers see Facebook posts of yours? 

Can employers see your social media? Well not, if you have changed the settings, otherwise they obviously can. Sleazy and naughty Facebook profiles can get you in a lot of trouble. There is one more thing that you need to take care of. And these are other people’s posts about you on social media platforms. 

If there are unflattering or inappropriate posts about you, then you need to reach out to people and convince them to either untag you or take down such posts. If the people don’t show any inclination of taking down such posts, you can report the same to website owners.

2. Think Twice Before You Post:

The best way to ensure that you have a good online reputation is to not post anything that can get you in trouble. You should think how can your reputation be affected by online activities that you are about to do. Always try to be on your best behavior when you are posting anything on social media. 

It is because even if your post was live for a couple of minutes, the entire thing can still spiral out of control. Ask yourself a lot of questions when you are about to post anything on social media. Refrain from posting anything critical about your employer or anything which can hurt your company and job reputation. This is because the reputation of the employees is somewhat linked to the overall reputation of the company.

3. Remove Negative Content:

You need to get negative content about you removed, the kind of content you posted and also the kind of content someone else posted about you. While the first part is relatively easy, the struggle is in the second part. This is because websites are not under any legal obligation to delete content just because you have requested them to do so. If you feel that the content is in contravention to the Terms of Service of the platform, then you can report it and it can get removed. Almost all social media platforms have Terms of Service, where accounts can be suspended and posts can be taken down, if they have been reported.

4. Counter Incorrect Information:

If there is incorrect information in search results, then you should point it out on your application to an employer. It is crucial that you do so, because then you won’t have to face the repercussions of someone else’s bad decisions. There are also a lot of different things that you can do to ensure that the errors don’t appear in a future pre-employment check. You can also hire experts to make sure errors in your employment background checks are corrected.

5. Establish Your Brand:

The key to maintaining a good online reputation is to suppress unwanted items in your search results pages with content that is positive and over which you have control. It is because things created by you have a higher chance of ranking highly in search results for your name. Also, if the content is on the sites you control, you will also be able to edit and update it easily. 

You can create content by starting a blog where you write about professional as well personal things. Another way of creating content is by getting active in industry groups on social media. Take advantage of the wonderful platform and get active on the network. It is crucial that you do so because LinkedIn often ranks at the top spot of a person’s search results. 

6. Revamp Your Resume:

Your employers search for you to verify your credentials. This includes a background check including analyzing your skills and accomplishments. Thus, you need to revamp your resume. You need to make it easily searchable and easy to read. You need to revamp your resume for the job and industry that you are aiming for. 

Once you have revamped your resume and made appropriate changes, you need to post it online for potential employers to find it easily. LinkedIn would be the best start. Any and all links to important formation about you available online should be included in your digital resume. If you google “i want to post my resume online”, you will come across a lot of different ways of revamping your resume and posting it online to attract the maximum number of eye-balls.

The Bottom Line

The aforementioned ways will help you in improving and protecting your online reputation. It is very important for the growth of your career. Upon following all the aforementioned tips, you will be well on your way to ensuring a positive online reputation for yourself. 

If you are struggling with effectively implementing the tips on your own, you can hire online brand reputation management services. There are many such companies who offer services across the entirety of the internet and in every possible price range. If you know where to look and how to look, you will definitely be able to come across a service provider who suits your requirements and whose online reputation management pricing is within your budget.