What’s in a name in a search engine?

Almost everyone at some time or another has Googled their own name to see what the World Wide Web has to say about them. You can almost bet any potential employer is going to so if you haven’t done it recently try it again, I’ll wait.

Does anything relevant even make the first page of hits? Is it anything you want your future boss to see? If you’re looking for a job in communications and the only readily available online information about you is that you have six profiles on different social networking sites you might want to rethink your strategy. Even if they are all set to private, a hiring manager might assume most of the communication you’re doing involves tweeting.

You might have a particularly common name that returns results for a barrage of people that aren’t someone you would want to be mistaken for. To avoid these sorts of mix ups include a distinctive middle name when labeling yourself professionally. It makes it easier for prospective employers to cross check your resume with the online presence you’ve created.

You’ll have to go beyond just filling out profiles and posting your resume on job sites, which is a must. I have received numerous calls from people who have stumbled across my resume like this. After this initial contact what will set you apart from all the other candidates is a site that will introduce them virtually to your skills and previous work.

If you have the opportunity to make an online portfolio by all means go all out and really showcase yourself. That is usually the best route as long as you keep in mind that you’re designing for someone to hire you and not to please yourself. The quick and inexpensive alternative to that would be to sign up for an online blog. Sites like WordPress and Blogger allow you to create and stylize a blog of your own for free. Pick a quick professional template and fill in the information. You don’t even have to blog beyond a quick introduction for the home page.

Then you can add these elements to make it feel like an online portfolio:

• Bio page – link to your resume and give a brief professional description of yourself
• Samples page – Include pictures of your best work with a description of the role you had in creating it, hyperlink them where applicable
• Contact page – best to send them to an email address since anyone and everyone online will be able to see this information
• Meta-Data – fill out this section with your name, job titles and career fields you are interested in

Get creative but remain professional. One of my favorite twists on the Google name search scenario is a writer named Alec Brownstein who bought Google ads for the names of the CEOs of the companies where he wanted to work. When they Googled themselves the first hit they saw was Brownstein’s ad asking for a job. He got interviews with four out of the five CEOs he had targeted and job offers from two of them.

By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer, business owner, and work-from-home mom.