Your online history is your offline future

Have you ever considered that friendly online banter amongst friends might one day be viewed by your potential employers?

Have you stopped to think those nasty comments you made about someone at school in the online forum are now public and are a part of big image you have created for yourself on the internet?

You're young, who cares?  You may - one day...

As the internet grows, the popularity amongst potential employers and hiring managers to use the information they can find on applicants online grows with it.  How you act online now can affect the rest of your life. As a growing company NCI takes its recruitment seriously.  You can have the best qualifications in the world but if you don't fit in with the rest of the team or you appear untrustworthy then we wouldn't consider you for any position, and NCI is just one of billions of employers out there.

It isn't just you that creates your online reputation, your friends and family all contribute to how you appear to complete strangers.  Those totally unsuitable photographs of you posted by your best friend who was just having a laugh may have cost you a job. The tweets you make or your facebooks posts can all add up to a world of digital destruction of your reputation.

So what can you do about it?

Always think before you post.  It is very easy to be nasty to someone online.  You may not even know the person, and you may think you have good reason to but if that post is public then it could be you are doing more damage to yourself than them.

Hang out with the right people.  We all have friends that say things we wish they wouldn't.  We may even add people to our online circles because they are friends of friends or complete strangers that have something in common. Over time we may consider those people as friends, but are they really?  Stand back, take your time and think about who could be doing you more damage being your online friend, and get rid of them.

Build up a solid reputation.  Everyone has something they are good at, consider blogging about it, teach others and create positive vibes about you for others to see.

Get the bad things removed.  Go through your posts, consider what you have written and think about what others would think of those posts and remove the bad ones.  Ask your friends and family to do the same explaining that you know it was meant in jest but you have a career to think about and it would be ever so nice of them if they would remove their bad post of you for you.

Think privacy, don't post.  No posting online is completely private.  Yes you may have set all your privacy settings to be secure, your friends too, but all it takes is for one so called friend to make your post public and your future could be affected forever.  If you have something you want to get off your chest that could be seen in a bad light by others don't say it online.