Career Advice Talk

Online Identity: are you a “digital ghost”?

16th April, 2009 - Posted by Robin Ogden -

How’s your online presence these days?  In today’s career marketplace to be a digital ghost (meaning unknown online) is the equivalent of being a digital disaster.  Why is having an online presence so important now? The answer to that question is fairly simple, but the building of your presence and your personal brand online is not quite as simple.

The simple part of the question is that in today’s web 2.0 marketplace people (employers, recruiters, networking contacts, etc.) expect to be able to find you online - even if you’re not huge out there, they should at least be able to find you on LinkedIn - that is just a given these days.  Not being on LinkedIn is the first check mark in the ‘digital ghost’ column.  As noted on the Reach website…

“83% of recruiters use search engines to learn about candidates and 43% of recruiters admit to eliminating candidates based on information they found online.”- ExecuNet Study, 2007

To expand your presence it is helpful to blog, use twitter, facebook, and more…depending upon just how much you want to stand out online.  To understand personal branding on multiple levels it’s a good idea to read Dan Schawbel’s new book:  Me 2.0, Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success

So, just how can you find out where you stand with regard to your digital identity?  Well, I came across a ‘cool tool‘ (designed by Willam Arruda and Kirsten Dixson; authors of Career Distinction - Stand out by Building Your Brand) which lets you insert your data and then provides you with a graph on how much (or little) you stand out online.  Give it a whirl.