Handling your online Identity for Interviews

Handling your online Identity for Interviews

Today in the age of internet, there is hardly anyone who does not have an online identity. But people forget that being online situations are a lot like offline ones and are drawn into a false sense of security that make them not follow basic etiquette that they would have followed in similar situations offline. This has a lot to do with the online facet of life being a relatively new piece of life and hence there is a lack of an inherent ethical and social framework to deal with the same for most people. For most part of your student life this kind of careless online behaviour goes unchecked as there are no sudden repercussions and it is when you are sitting for a job interview or for a interview for with your dream institute that it comes back and haunts your.
On the other hand there is a positive side to the coin, as colleges/companies look for people who are new age savvy and can leverage the tools of this age to make them more employable/marketable and would look for such attributes online. It is common knowledge that most top institutes/organisations do a complete check of your online identity and even expect you to mention some of them in their application forms etc.

In this piece we bring you some basic guidelines / info that you should keep in the back of your mind when you are engaging yourself in online activities so as to avoid the pitfalls and rather leverage it as an enabler

•    Do an “Ego Search” - The best place to start taking control of your online identify is by doing what is popularly called an ego search. This is the act of doing an online search of your name. Keep in mind that this is probably how your interviewer would also start looking at your online identity and hence is an excellent place for you to start. Though a lot of things that come up in the results are not in your control there is a good chance that you might find something that is related to you and something that you can change for e.g. a comment you left on a blog or some article that you wrote and published online.

•    Do First time Right - High chances are that even once you find the content; it might be hard to remove so the rule is always to keep this aspect in mind while you are posting anything public online.

•    Use Pseudonyms - Try to use a pseudonym instead of your actual name wherever applicable. And even when you use a pseudonym make sure that you do not leave identifying details along with these anonymous accounts.

•    Do Early - Any change that can be done needs to be done much as early as possible since there will be inevitable delays to get things changed online. Search engines may take time to update the cache and the search results based on old data may show up for anything between 1 day to a week or even more after the content is changed. Sometimes you may need to ask the moderator or site owner to make the changes which might take more time.

•    Blog Rules – Blogging today is a popular means of self expression and more and more people are joining the blogger community day by day. The topics on which people blog can range from personal rants and crushes to viewpoints on international topics. As long as the blog can be traced back to you, and in most likelihood it can be, be assured that this will also be evaluated for any potential application that you make and hence apply personal filter criteria keeping this in mind.

•    Forums – Forums are another areas which probably deserves an article on their own but some basic rules include

o    Each forum will have its own rules and etiquette and it is imperative to understand them well before you go ahead and start posting

o    Remember that what you post can potentially be read by anyone from your interviewers, seniors and even your future classmates, so tread carefully. There have been instances of people being quizzed on what they posted on popular online forums in their MBA interviews.

o    If something was exposed to you under conditions of confidentially or anything that you are planning to do is in violation of copyright laws, terms of services trademarks etc please don’t do it. Examples can include posting online questions etc in exams where the question paper is taken back and you are asked not to reveal the question in public. This might seem silly to you, but any violation that you do is a statement on your personal integrity and ethics.

o    Other things that should be avoided are simple mistakes like SHOUTING (writing in caps) or acting too desperate etc.

•    Socialize but in private – Social networking sites today take up a lot of our online time and are excellent tools to keep in touch. But most of your activities are by default available in public and this must be kept in mind. Innocuous messages sent in private can be interpreted in pretty negative ways be a person not understanding the context. This is easy to handle as all these sites today grant privacy features to avoid any stranger from getting access to your information but the onus is upon you to use these features properly so that your private life remains private.

•    Use the power – Till now most of the guidelines were more like warnings, but there is a positive side to it too. Professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Xing are very important tools to make new contacts in the new age and being present on them will give a fillip to your application. Getting published on respectable sites etc is also a good way to establish your credentials.

Our online identity today is as much a part of us  as our offline identities are and it is important to understand the difference between public and private areas online and manage one's online image in the same way as one would have done to his/her offline image.