Taking Care of Your Image

Contributed by Guest Blogger, Jodi Reichstadt

In today’s competitive job market, you have to be extra aware of yourself in order to land that next job. Whether you’re just entering a job market, doing a career change or re-designing yourself due to a layoff, personal attentiveness is key.

How much do you know about you?  Well, have you Googled yourself lately? If you’ve captured the attention of your next employer, chances are that they have. 

I recently attended a conference where the focus was managing your image on the Internet.  The major corporations are now hiring “Online Image Managers”. These people’s focus is to seek and find items that could blemish their reputation and/or control conversations about the brand’s they represent.

What this means to you is very important looking towards the future. You need to tread lightly where social networks are concerned. I’m sure you’ve heard stories of people calling in sick only to be “tagged in the amazing party pictures from last night”.  Having a billion friends on your MySpace or Facebook as well as a plethora of “connections” on Linked In or “followers” on Twitter may come back to get you in a negative way.  I have a client who had someone impersonate him on Twitter, putting up a profile with his picture and bio information.  This is a serious infraction of “you” and how you want others to see you, especially in today’s job market.  My client is fighting to have it removed before any real damage can be done.

Since the competition for jobs is fierce and there are hundreds of applicants that look as good as you do, take an inventory of yourself.  Is it time to clean out the closet and remove behaviors from your life that could potentially harm? Is it time to remove someone from your “network” that may have a negative reflection on you?  It’s important to understand that everything you do online is written forever and you need to pay attention to yourself in addition to how you comment on other people’s topics of conversation; anything negative could be perceived by a potential employer as a “deal-breaker”.

Take care of yourself inside and it will show on the outside.  Take care of yourself on the outside and you won’t need to worry about finding yourself being passed up for the next opportunity.  Think first so you won’t have to waste your time or energy cleaning up messes that will destroy the image you are working dutifully to build.

This entry was contributed by guest blogger, Jodi Reichstadt of The Publicity Studio.  Jodi is a public relations and marketing guru specializing in new media forms like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.