Have you checked what happens when you Google your name? Career experts suggest you take a look at the search results -- your future job may depend on it.
A survey commissioned by The Creative Group, a specialized staffing service for marketing, advertising, creative and web professionals, shows half of advertising and marketing executives search online for information about prospective hires.
Among those, 14 per cent have decided, based on their findings, against hiring a prospective candidate.
Ron Telpner, chairman and CEO of the ad agency The BrainStorm Group, told CTV.ca he always performs online checks for potential hires.
"We check MySpace and Facebook; you can become someone's friend really easily," Telpner said.
"We ask if we can get onto the profile, and I don't know if that's strictly kosher or not, but we do what we need to do to get background."
And if he finds something he doesn't like, such as "those shots of inappropriate dressing, over-drinking, those kinds of things people sometimes celebrate on their sites," the candidate is likely not to get a foot in the door.
It is safe to say, Telpner said, that some candidates have never even been called for a first interview.
At the same time, a personal profile can work in a candidate's favour. Telpner is a fan of Jamaica and Bob Marley, and if a candidate has included something about those subjects, it might strike a chord with him, "because you see some like-mindedness."
Tips for an impressive Internet profile:
- Include details about your professional involvement and qualifications
- Make the most of social networking sites
- But be selective in who you allow into your network
- Post your comments on industry forums or write online articles in your area of expertise
- Create your own website and link to articles of interest
- List information about your skills and past achievements
- Include work samples if you are a creative professional
- If there is unflattering information about you online that you cannot remove, be prepared to offer an explanation to employers
CTV.ca spoke with a young woman who had a potentially career-limiting experience with the Internet. She was being considered for a new role and some of her colleagues Googled her name. Revealing pictures from her university days popped up, even though the site had been abandoned years earlier. Her supervisor advised her to remove the images before putting her name forward.
"Fortunately, the guy who'd owned the domain was going to school to be a media lawyer. It took quite a few a calls (from him) and some threatening emails, but eventually the ISP removed it," said the young woman.
But that wasn't the end of it. She also had to worry about websites that cache, or save, Internet pages that have been deleted. A friend sent a letter to the waybackmachine (a website that allows users to visit web pages that may no longer be available) explaining the situation, and to her surprise it was taken down.
"The same thing worked for Google's cache, so within a couple weeks, my site went from being the first hit when searching my name, to nowhere to be found."
The question arises, should employers discuss such findings with their prospective hires?
Anita Lerek, president of the Advocate Placement Agency, has considered the implications of online reference checks.
"If you see somebody horsing around in the nude in a photograph, are you allowed to use that information in your hiring decision? And are you supposed to tell the candidate about that?"
She liked the hiring process to the "Wild West."
"Basically, hirers can do whatever they want because they are under no obligations to justify their actions," Lerek said.
Telpner feels it's just another way to get information and ensure the candidate he is investing in has the "right fit."
"If you can show me creativity, if you can capture my interest, if you can connect online, well then you can communicate. And that is something that we might be interested in," Telpner said.
