If you've ever read anything about getting a job in a technical field, you've probably heard about potential employers looking you up on Google or through various social networks. You put yourself out there, so don't be surprised when they hunt down that information. Now, gearing a Facebook or a Twitter account to show off your skills and play the part of a digitial resume is pretty easy, yet there's still Google and all the things that it could dig up that you may not have put on the resume. It's much harder to control what comes up in a Google search, but not entirely impossible. Here, I'm going to talk about ways to craft your "Google Profile," the first few pages of what shows up when somebody searches your name (with or without quotes).
First off, let's define exactly what your "Google Profile" is. It is the first page or two of results returned from Googling your name with other optional keywords with and without quotes. There's no login page or profile picture, you don't have privacy settings and you can't simply delete things you don't want linked to you. You have to sculpt it to represent you in the proper light. It can take days or even weeks before you really make an impact and notice any changes in your results. It depends how drastic your changes are and how fast Google indexes those changes. The results are of course entirely dependent on what is searched, and your potential employer may not search the nickname you prefer. For example, an employer may search "Corbin Ogburn" (my legal, yet loathed, real name) instead of "Corey Ogburn" when they have my resume in front of them that only has that name. If you have a name that appears to be short for something else, such as John being short for Johnathon or Ben being short for Benjamin, then expect them to search for those too, even if they aren't your legal name. Thorough employers may search all sorts of variations of your name along with other keywords looking for dirt on you that could tarnish your record, or equally as bad, reflect badly on the company's name. Sad to say, but they're going to look for skeletons in your closet more than they're going to look for your hidden achievements, but that's our goal: bring to surface your achievements. I do recommend you put your biggest, relative achievements on your resume, but for all the little successes in life that are not worthy of a technical resume (but still make you look good), they can show up online to boost your character. Coached little league? Stand out student in college? Single handedly save 11 orphans from a burning building? Not prime material for a developer position, but good fodder for the Google search results!
This is not entirely about hiding non-flattering things you (allegedly) have done. You shouldn't lie to your employer if they do find less than ideal material attached to you. Remember that most places will also run background checks and the easiest way to control that is to stay clean from the beginning. I can't offer a redemption from events that are currently keeping you unemployed if that's the case, but you can prove a strong argument using the positive material you produce to out weigh any negatives. Good luck to you, I hope this helps.
The key to controlling search results is authorship. Put some content out there. Write something, add to something, create something and put it out there for Google to index. For example, if you Google me (Corey Ogburn), this blog is the top of the search results. A blog is a great way to author material and have your name attached to it. If you don't have your own hosted webspace, there's always Wordpress or Google's Blogger where you can set up a central hub to showcase your work for free. That's exactly what my blog is to me: My digital resume and portfolio. As you add more pages and more content to your site, it'll rise to the top of the search results page. You do need to make sure your name is on the site in a few places. In order for it to show up in a search of your name, you'll need to take responsibility for it. Taking on a pseudonym can help keep things private, but employers most likely won't search a screen name. The goal is for this info to NOT be private, but public.
If you don't want to commit to an entire blog, no problem. Second result in my profile is my Stack Overflow account (which every developer should have). The questions I ask and the answers I give can say a lot about me and my projects. The more questions and answers you have for that account, the more pages that link to your profile and Google's search algorithms place a lot of weight in pages that are linked to a lot. It also helps that my username on StackOverflow is not a cryptic screen name, but my actual name. There's no reason that all of your online accounts can't be like this. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, DeviantArt and other social and semi-social accounts can make it to the top. Just like a blog and unlike your Google profile, these accounts are things you have direct control over and you can fine tune what's visible and what's not. If you think about it, I'm sure you have a dozen or so accounts that you never thought of as material to get you a job.
The world is a big place, the internet seems even bigger. For some people, you may find that there are several people out there with your name. Appearantly there's a Corey Ogburn in Tennessee who was a Soccer player. He could be awesome at his sport, I don't care. You don't want somebody else to look like they're you, especially if they have a shady history that could hurt your chances at a job. If you're not going to try and take control of your Google profile, the least you should do is Google yourself so you know what employers will see. You don't want to be blindsided by them turning you down for a felony or some other mishap that your internet doppelganger committed. Overcoming fellow people with your name can be difficult and differs from person to person based on how active a digital life they live. If they produce more content online than you do, then you may quickly lose your profile to them. Sometimes all you can do is wait them out. If they had an article in their school newspaper that's trumping your orphan saving skills then you may just need to wait for that article to die while your newer content comes to the top.
I focus on Google's results obviously because of their large search market share. I suppose you could work on a Bing profile, but chances are that nobody would see it on Bing... Or Yahoo. They're technically still a search engine, I think.
Advice
google, search, job, resume