Making mistakes is an inevitable part of being human, but documenting our lives on social media is making them harder to forget.
IS your digital footprint ruining your reputation and, possibly, your job opportunities? Here’s what you should do.
GOOGLE – beat the engine
Problem: If your name is Googled, information about a past misdemeanour pops up in the first page, or, Googling your name comes up with another “John Smith” leaving the first mention of the real you languishing on page five of the search engine results, where no recruiter or employer will ever look.
Solution: You need to create enough content about you to rank higher in results through a blog, social media profiles, a website and actively commenting and appearing in forums and other sites.
Best advice: “You have to concentrate on what you do,” says Davies’. “You can’t remove other pages, so you have to outrank them. The only real power you have is to take the power – and ranking – away from the other page with positive content about you.”