Have you ever read that you should own your personal “name” domain. Well, there are a lot of very good reasons for owning your name domain with the primary one being that you can control and protect it from being used nefariously or prevent anyone from piggy-backing off of your success. When it comes to job hunting though, there are several reason why you should not only own it, but actually use it to expedite your job search.
Google, Google, Google
While this may seem like a no brainer, a personal web page can be used as a very positive synopsis of your work and life that YOU control. You control the content, you control the message and you control the picture it paints of you. Why is this important? Well in a word…Google. Once your personal page is indexed by Google (Bing and the other search engines) it will almost certainly move on to the first page of results returned by the search engine when someone Googles your name. In fact, more often than not I’ve seen it return as the “top” hit within a very short time for most people because your name is a part of the url.
This means that you get the first crack at telling your story to anyone who Googles you, simple as that. Trust me, they will click on joeblow.com if they’ve just Googled Joe Blow. It’s really just simple human nature and also one of the reasons why the “name” domain rises so fast in search results.
Opportunity
This, as you may have surmised by now, gives you an enormous opportunity to “speak” to a potential employer in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to because Googling you happens before any interview, usually after having been made aware of you through a resume or referral. Oh, and if you think that employers aren’t Googling think again. In today’s world, and especially with jobs as hard to come by as they are right now, employers are using every tool at their disposal to find out as much information as they can about potential candidates and “Googling” is about as easy as it gets.
Bottom Line
The bottom line here is that if you’re in a job search, buy your domain name (they can be had for as little as $10 or less a year) and get something positive up for employers to see. We here at the Imagemakers, Ink! offer personal web pages as one of our many career services because we know how important the web (and Google, Bing, etc.) has become to a successful job search. If you have a common name, there are ways around that and we can help, just give us a call!
~Stu
