by Terrie Osborn, CPRW
If you're looking for a job, you want to have a LinkedIn page, and it's as easy as going to LinkedIn and setting up a page for yourself - http://www.linkedin.com/
LinkedIn has become a very respected, professional (quite a bit different from Facebook) networking site. You can add lots of information into it, but for starters you can just use copy/pasted parts of your resume or put your whole resume on it.
One of the big things that can create an advantage for you on LinkedIn is to add a decent photo of yourself. Doesn't have to be a studio or stuffy photo, just not super casual like you might post on Facebook.
Use something that makes you look like a reasonable candidate for an internship or regular professional job. Sometimes someone has taken a great photo of you at a wedding or other social event that you can crop/clean up a bit, and use. You want your photo to make you look smart, friendly and capable.
Once you've created a LinkedIn page, add a link to your LinkedIn page to the bottom of your resume. That way, if someone gets through your resume and is still interested, they can click on your LinkedIn page and see what you look like, and then your resume is not just a sheet of paper or a Word .doc, now the reader can see that you're a real person.
Speaking of Facebook, you need to be aware of and to control what's out in cyberspace about you. Google yourself to see what comes up. Employers, more and more, do that to candidates they're considering for positions. They do it even before they contact you the first time and may decide to NOT contact potential candidates because of what they've found about them on line. Eyebrow-raising stories abound about what employers have discovered about their employees at Facebook, and the varying degrees of damage Facebook revelations have created to employer/employee relationships.
Make sure whatever is on line about you is stuff you'd be okay with a potential employer seeing. You can set constraints in Facebook so that not just anyone can access your Facebook page.
If there's other stuff that you don't want to be in cyberspace about you, often you can email the site you find yourself at and ask them to take it down and they will. That doesn't always work but usually it does.
