Do a Social Media Clean Up Before You Job Search

By Allan Hoffman, Monster contributor

Think you need a social media clean up? You very well might if you're planning on looking for a new job.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to post that video from your bachelor party in Vegas. Or to include a recipe for pot brownies in your otherwise above-board food blog. Or to rant about your former employer—specifically, about the CEO’s bad haircut and body odor—on an industry message board. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to do any of the other infinitely creative, breathtakingly easy and completely dumb things the internet allows you to do with just a few keystrokes and mouse clicks.

But you did, and now you’re sorry as you head out into the job market with an online reputation to repair.

In the early days of the internet, no one really knew how many job candidates were considering how their online reputation might affect their job prospects. But in this day and age, people have come to realize that what they do online—and what others say about them online—can play a role in determining whether they get hired or fired.

A less-than-savory online reputation is one of a handful of barriers to employment that job seekers might face. One study reported that a whopping 90% of employers check candidates' social profiles as part of the job-screening process, and 79% of HR professionals have declined to offer someone a job offer based on inappropriate social media activity.

Post a video, and it may be online forever, no matter how stupid it makes you look. The same goes for blog posts, forum discussions, photo albums, social posts, and even emails you send to friends. (You never know what will spread from the private sphere to the public realm.) The point is painfully obvious: You need to be thoughtful and deliberate when conducting your life online.

But what happens when it’s too late? Here’s how you can perform a social media clean up and attempt to undo the damage.

Tips to Improve Online Reputation

1. Scope Out the Damage

First, determine what damaging information exists. Enter your name at Google, MSN and Yahoo and see what turns up in the first four or five pages of results. Anything troubling? Mark it for action. Then sign up for the alerts available at spots like Google Alerts; when information about you is added or updated, you’ll find out via email.

Monitoring your reputation in this manner is time-consuming, so you may want assistance. There are numerous companies that clean up social media accounts of their paying members with monthly search reports that detail the information available about them on blogs, photo and video sites, news sources, and social networking hubs.

An item doesn’t need to be outrageous to hurt your job prospects. If it raises any suspicion or shadow of a doubt about you, an employer is going to think twice about hiring you.

2. Bury the Bad With the Good

So you did something stupid, maybe a month ago, maybe a decade ago. Now you want to fix your online reputation to make sure no one finds that record of your stupidity. Try burying the bad with the good. That means creating new content about yourself, such as a blog or website. You can't make the bad stuff disappear, but if you make lots of good stuff, you (and everyone else) will be less likely to find the bad stuff. Just be sure you create worthwhile material. If possible, publish your writing at respected sources, such as industry publications. After all, publishing your own material goes only so far.

3. Request Removal

You may be able to have the material removed as part of your social media clean up, but remember that much of what appears online is archived at the Internet Archive, a nonprofit initiative designed to be a resource for historians and researchers.

If you believe you have a strong case to have material removed, don’t come out swinging, as that can potentially create more bad PR for you. Instead, take a soft stance: Explain your reasons for wanting the material removed and assume the owner of the site (or the owner’s representative) is reasonable and will listen. If the information is inaccurate, defamatory or libelous, point that out.

Just be sure to learn as much as possible about the site before making your move. If you’re dealing with an in-your-face blog, sending an email to the blogger requesting that something about you be removed can backfire. Bloggers have been known to post those emails, so be aware that your request could end up casting more unfavorable attention on you.

As for search engines, don’t bother seeing if they clean up social media accounts. You won’t have any luck asking them to rig their results in your favor.

4. Hire Online Reputation Management Professionals

A growing number of online reputation management services can help you fix your online reputation. These services include Scrubber, Webimax, and Reputation 911. For a fee, these companies use a variety of tactics to improve your online reputation and ensure that the positive material about you rises to the top of search-engine results.

Reputation matters, and if you’re not diligent, you may end up paying a very high price.

Have an Easier Job Search

After you've done a social media clean up, get your name out there—in a good way! Want some help getting positive attention? Create a free profile on Monster. We can connect you to great recruiters, send you job alerts of your choosing, and much more.