Nanny Confessions: Protect Your Online Reputation
I recently saw the quote, “Treat anything you might post online like a tattoo. Will you like it five years from now? Would you want your boss, future employer, or mother to see it?”
I confess last week I really wanted to leave a bad review on Yelp and Facebook when I was super frustrated with a local business.
The reason I didn’t share my anger publicly is because when a potential Nanny Boss googles my name in the future I don’t want them seeing negative comments made by me online.
I also thought about how I would feel if I were in their shoes. If I were the business owner, or an employee, I would prefer a dissatisfied patron complain directly to me rather than publicly.
Workshops and courses for nannies and job candidates in every career field highly recommend job seekers clean up their online reputation prior to looking for new jobs.
Sharing views on politics can be particularly tricky for job seekers. While I think it is okay to endorse and support politicians, sharing nasty memes and articles simply wont help anyone stay employed or get a job in the future.
Below are ways to start cleaning up your online repuation.
4 Ways to Clean Up Your Online Reputation:
1. See What is Out There:
Do a search on your name in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Put your name in quotation marks to limit results to exact matches, and try a few variations of your name. Also do a Google Images and search on your name. Check all the sites where you have a profile, and where others might have posted about you, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, and others.
2. Delete and Clean Up What You Can:
On your own social networking pages you can easily delete your own posts, photos, and videos. It might be a little harder to get rid of stuff on other people’s social media.
Quietly unfriend people who might post unflattering things about you, as well as those who have their own tainted reputations to deal with. You don’t want to show up as linked to them.
Don’t share anything that puts you in a less-than-positive light, as others might post them publicly with your name attached to them. Just pass on sharing nasty online items.
3. Lock Down Your Pages:
You can’t remove everything. But you can lock down some content.
Change your privacy settings on sites so only select friends are allowed to see what you post.
Limit what others can post about you. For example, in Facebook’s privacy settings you can block other people from tagging you in photos without your permission. They can still tag you, but it won’t be public until you approve it.
4. Drown Out Bad Stuff with New Good Stuff:
Search engines love new content, so eventually newer items about you will rise in search engine results and show up on the first pages when someone searches for you. Make sure that everything you post from now on reflects only positive comments and pictures.
Delete old accounts and set up squeaky clean new profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and others.Post only positive comments and stories on those sites.
Monitor your online reputation. Set up a Google Alert for your name, (and all variations), and you’ll be notified of any new mentions.
Bottom line, your online reputation is part of your nanny resume. There isn’t a parent that won’t google your name before interviewing you. Before posting anything online ask yourself would you want your boss, future employer, or mother to see it?
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