Working World

Has this happened to you yet? You’re on an interview for a dream job, you’re definitely qualified and your sterling resume reflects that. The interview is going well — not just “well ”— you are smokin’ hot and they want you bad. You can feel it. You know you aced the interview, blew away the competition, and you are confident you’ll be offered the gig. But a few days, and then a week passes. Maybe another week goes by. You are NOT offered the job. What happened?

It’s quite likely you “got Googled.” Yep, that same indispensable search engine that helps you track down leads on jobs, new technology, products to consume, old classmates, and does research for you on just about every aspect of your life, can also be your ultimate career downfall.

If you’ve got a presence on the web on any of the popular social networking sites where you’re using your real identity, it’s now more likely that prospective employers will evaluate not only your resume, but judge your character by what they find out about you on the Internet. MySpace, Friendster, YouTube and others are now regularly checked by human resources personnel around the globe. If you’ve got anything potentially embarrassing out there in cyberspace, it may come back to haunt your career climb. That photo of you drunk on the beach at Spring Break was a hoot — all your college pals thought so at the time — but the new employer may question your judgment and decide not to hire you.

What you can do: Google yourself and clean up your cyber history. Type in a search of your own name on Google, Yahoo, Altavista, DogPile and as many other search engines as you can and see how many red flags come up. You could be on a friend’s MySpace site and not even know about it. Do what you can to erase those items, postings, photos and videos from the original sites. Don’t participate in any new craziness in cyberspace or post controversial opinions until you own the company yourself.

Katy Allgeyer is an artist and freelance writer. She writes the Feng Shui column for Working World and the Tell Us About It column for Working Nurse.