Selling Yourself
Read Danny Warton’s article from the Globe and mail (Toronto, Canada) “Selling Yourself”
Protect your online reputation.

The internet and your job
More and more job seekers are consulting the internet to verify their reputations online. It is not too far-fetched that suddenly you realize that there are things on the net that surprise you. When was the last time you googled yourself or anyone else for that matter? Do mysterious evaluations or anecdotes appear on your alumni page revealing a crazy incident from years gone by? Does that political association you belonged to years ago still have you listed as active? Once the data is online, it will most probably stay. Consider the following:

Communicating through the net by Elliot Howard
Information about you on the net
This public data is not at all within your control. Companies are under no obligation to sensor information. Some social networking sites can’t get it off. Once search engines have labeled you, it can be years before a contentious situation is rectified. In a job interview it would be better to spin the stories that are most likely being revealed by the interviewer.

An anecdote
Andrew Park is a typical unemployed person. He has a day job. He also has a part-time activity where he is moonlighting selling things on the net. Inadvertently, he made the mistake of putting his name online associating him with his after-hours activities, namely another job. Since then, after several failed attempts at interviews, he has fixed his problem by contacting technicians to have the situation rectified for once and for all.

Cultivating a reputation online
It is actually possible to have some control over your online persona. Of course this is limited. Preparation! Consider the future. Use pseudonyms. This is obvious. Create an online character that you can use many times over. This way you can develop consistency.

Exploiting the net
For all it is worth, the net can work in your favor. Use it! If you have been atimportant conference that can help your career, try to get your name on the list that will be published on the internet site. Also you can contribute to the conference blog. You can also use social networking sites like Facebook, to promote yourself. Just remember that once you are online it is hard to remove the information.