Techlearning blog

Everybody knows that colleges and interviewers are starting to Google applicants to learn the sorts of things that may not be listed on their resume. It's in the newspapers, on the television, stories are reported about it every day. Typically, the story doesn't have a happy ending. Jimmy was a shoo in for the job or college, until they saw the inappropriate photos he'd shared on MySpace.

However, that doesn't need to be the way the story goes. Wouldn't we all like to change the ending to something like this: Jimmy was being considered for scholarship, but when the admissions team saw the things he had published in his portfolio online, they knew he was the clear winner.

I'm exaggerating a little, but I'm serious about the idea behind it. The trail you leave behind you can either work for you or it can work against you. Why not make sure that it's working for you.

Start off by doing a Google search for yourself. If you have a pretty common first and/or last name, you'll probably need to put your name in quotes, "Jim Smith". See what comes up. Depending on your name, you may find millions of web sites, so how deep should you go? For the most part, most interviewers/admissions departments tend to go about 3 pages deep so focus on that.

Generally you'll find that you fall into one of four categories: A) There's barely any information about you there. Maybe the space is dominated by someone else with the same name, maybe you just don't leave much of a trail behind you. Either way, only a minimal number of links are related to you. B) There's plenty of sites that mention you, but not many that you would really say represent you well. Maybe there's race results from the 5K you participated in, a link to your Flickr page, and links to some comments you left on blogs over the years. Not awful, but nothing incredible either. C) Yes, there's information about you there, and it ain't pretty. Everybody makes mistakes, and perhaps that flame war you got into with somebody over NCLB happens to be on the front page of your Google search. Whatever it is, it's something you don't really want representing you. D) There's plenty there, and you are proud of what it is. It represents you well and is exactly what you'd want your friends, family, co-workers and students to see.

If you find yourself in category C, the first thing you need to do is start scrubbing out the undesirable content that you don't want people to see. That means making profiles private, taking down websites within your control, deleting discussion threads, and petitioning sites like Google and WayBackMachine to remove archived copies of all of them. Most sites are perfectly willing to remove cached copies, so long as you formally make the request.

At that point, categories A, B, and C all have the same solution essentially, and that's ensure that you have enough positive content published to fill up the first several pages of a Google search. What sorts of content? Blog posts, wiki pages, classroom homepage, social networking profiles, anything you feel represents you well and you are willing to allow to be attributed directly to your name. If someone is going to take the time to search for you, shouldn't you make sure they find positive things?

I've been talking about doing this for yourself, but let's be honest here... As important as it is for people who search for you to find things that represent you well, isn't it even more important for your students to do the same?

I would suggest that starting in middle school, students should begin to Google their name on a regular basis. If something that portrays them in a negative light is listed within the first three pages, then they should take action to remove it. The second part of the task would be to create an online portfolio with the intent of populating those three pages with the best they have to offer.

Let's face it, if you know for a fact that the admissions departments and interviewers are going to be searching their names, shouldn't we make sure they find the good stuff?