Question – a prospective employer has just reviewed your resume and has decided to bring you in for an interview.  What do they do after reviewing your resume, but before calling you for the interview?

If you answered, “Try to find everything they can about you from the internet” then you are right!

It is pretty well known these days that an employer will Google your name before bringing you in.  And maybe at this point you’ve built a fort knox of security around your social profiles.  But like any good reputation management campaign, you have to show positive results for 10 slots; and at most Facebook is only helping you with one or two.  So what can you do to have Google work for you?  How can you make a prospective employer Googling your name be a good thing?

The Usual Suspects

First, get yourself on the major social networks; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.  Obviously you now need to be wary of your actions there.  For Facebook you should take heed of privacy settings, for Twitter you need to conduct yourself in a positive manner (if your history on the site betrays you, start a new account), and LinkedIn should be easy.

For all of these networks make sure that your full name is added as appropriate; no goofy aliases in the “name” field.  The power of these sites should move them to the top of your results page in no time.

Blogging

A great asset to have in your Google results is a bio page on a popular blog.  At first, this may seem like a daunting task, but blogs in your industry are always looking for guest content.  Bloggers love great content, and more often than not, they are offered sub-par content laden with ulterior motives of self-promotion.  If you can write interesting, on-topic, and earnest articles, bloggers will love to publish it.

You can get started by making a list of blogs that you read or blogs that you find that are related to your industry.  Contact these bloggers, ask them if they are looking for guest content, give a little bio of where you are coming from, and pitch them a few article ideas.

Once you get the green light to write for them ask if they have an “About” or “Authors” page that you could be featured on.

Remember to use your full real name and depending on the popularity of the blog, your bio page and potentially an article of yours will appear in your Google results.

Vanity Websites

If you know your way around web design or blogging platforms you can fill some of the results with your creations.

On the production side, if your career choice has anything to do with the web, make a website for yourself!  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just some simple HTML with the homepage title tag having your full name will get noticed by the search engines.  Here is an example I put together earlier this year:

Frank’s Resume

If you aren’t skilled in the ways of the web, there are a number of great sites out there willing to do the work for you like Square Space.

In addition to this you can start a personal blog.  A quick word of warning however: this is not your diary.  But a blog that has a handful of articles you wrote about the industry you are in can not only appear in your Google results, but can give prospective employers a taste of your writing skills.

There are hundreds of DIY blog sites out there, I would recommend either Wordpress or Blogger.  And don’t forget to use your full name as the blog’s title to ensure it’s place in the Google results.

Resume Bucket

Okay, I’ll make this one quick.  We do our best here at Resume Bucket to help employers find candidates; and this includes search engine optimization.  So don’t forget to upload a resume at our site, we’ll do our best to take up one of those Google results for you, and with the result being your resume, you are just re-enforcing your employment qualifications.  We even have a free resume builder to do all the work of building a resume site for you.

That should get you started on taking control of the first page.  Of course, there are those employers who will take the time to see the second page of Google results.

Have you taken any of the above steps in your job hunt?  How did it work out?  Have you tried other methods that also worked?  Let us know!

Survey Reveals What Employers and Recruiters are Looking for in Q4 and Beyond

LOS ANGELES – Oct. 13, 2010 – ResumeBucket, the fastest-growing free online employment service, today announced the results of a study revealing what recruiters were searching for in the third quarter of 2010 (Q3). Compiled from a two-part study, ResumeBucket first reviewed the top 100 typed keywords most searched by recruiters looking for candidates. The top keywords and the industries they relate to were then categorized as follows:

Armed with the keyword results and top industries, the second half of the study included a survey sent to 1,500 HR managers and recruiters of the employers that currently use ResumeBucket’s services. The 10 question survey sampled recruiters’ plans for hiring in Q4 and into 2011; what stands out in a resume; and what tools they use to find candidates. Some of the key findings include:

• 93.5% of respondents plan on hiring in Q4 2010
  • 46% of those looking to hire 1-5 employees
  • 41.4% looking for 10 or more employees.
  • 51.6% of employers said that “Results stated in the candidate’s experience” was the most eye-catching aspect they looked for on a resume – several times the second most common result, the list of Previous Employers, at 17.6%, and the third most common, tailored content for the job, at 13.2%.
  • Only 2.2% of employers identified a candidate’s school as the most important area of a resume.
  • 87.4% of our employers primarily search for candidates on online Job Boards, as opposed to newspapers (4.6%), Trade Publications (2.3%), and professional recruiting or staffing services (5.7%).
  • 15% of Employers had made a hire through ResumeBucket within the past 3 months.

For more information about the study, or for a detailed results breakdown, contact ResumeBucket at info@resumebucket.com.

About Resume Bucket

ResumeBucket is the fastest growing free online employment service. Helping job seekers build a personal brand and better represent themselves to future employers, ResumeBucket provides each candidate their own website where they can easily post, edit, share and track their resume online. Nearly 300,000 people have already taken advantage and published their resume using the free service.

ResumeBucket is also a resource, accessed for free, by more than 1000 top employers to regularly search qualified resumes and post open positions. ResumeBucket is currently used by companies of all sizes, from SMBs to Fortune 100s, including Accenture, CBS, Dell, Ford/Mercury, GE Healthcare, Intel, Sears Holdings, Time Warner, Twitter, Waste Management and Yahoo!

For more information, please visit www.ResumeBucket.com.

Co-Founder of ResumeBucket Ted Hekman discusses tips and advice for helping you build a better resume in order to be noticed better by employers.

If you need more help creating a resume, I strongly suggest you use our Resume Writing Services. Our writers are top notch and very affordable.