On Careers

If You Can't Be Googled, Do You Exist?

By Karen Burns

July 9, 2008 RSS Feed Print

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"Working Girl" aka Karen Burns

Here in Internet-addicted Seattle, you don't hand new contacts a business card.

You say: "If you want to reach me, just Google my name."

A sign of extreme coolness is when people can find you by Googling only your first name.

Don't laugh. Even if you, like Working Girl, inhabit less rarefied circles, you still need to care about your Googleability—because many people (including some potential employers) now believe that if you aren't findable on the Internet, preferably on Page 1 of a search, it's the same as not existing.

Sad but true.

People with common names like John Smith or Mary Jones build their sites around a catchphrase (something to do with their work, like "Web strategy"). Then they say: "If you want to reach me, just Google 'Web strategy.' "

OK, say you have a website, a name like Mortimer Kadoodlehopper and/or a catchphrase. But your site doesn't appear on a Google search until Page 27. No one's going to find you there! So, how to improve your Google ranking?

You guessed it. Write a blog. It's the easiest and fastest way to scoot up to the head of the Google parade. In fact, the same people who say "The business card is dead" say that "The blog is the new résumé." Blogs are an excellent way to demonstrate your knowledge, establish authority, and network.

Wanna be Googlicious? Try blogging. It's not as hard as it seems. And wow your prospective employers in two clicks or less.

Karen Burns, Working Girl, is the author of The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use, to be released by Running Press in April 2009. She blogs at www.karenburnsworkinggirl.com.

Tags:: Google,; internet,; careers

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hotel italien buchen of 5:23PM April 21, 2010

I really don't think the rest of the world cares, good luck in inflating your ego though

jason adams of AR 4:52PM August 11, 2008

I should have mentioned that blogging works well for some fields and maybe less well for others.
If you are a writer of any kind, keeping a blog is a great sample of your work. Remember that old Bob Newhart episode where the woman who was looking for a job as a hair stylist always wore her hair in curlers (it was her "sample")?
It's like that.
Also if you are a Google or Microsoftie type, then blogging is considered cool and even normal.
I'm trying to think of what fields blogging would be bad for, bringing up the issues you mentioned,. Hmmmm. Would you really want to work for such a fearful, suspicious employer?

Working Girl of WA 10:51PM July 09, 2008