In a nutshell, your brand is your online presence. You can, and should, have your own brand; just like Tiffany’s has for fine jewelry or Subway has for submarine sandwiches.

Your professional brand needs to reflect your skills, your interests, and your expertise. So, when someone finds information about you online, it connects them to who you are and what you can do.

Like it or not, if an employer is considering you for a job, they are going to Google you to see what they can find. What you don’t want prospective employers looking at is the pictures of your summer vacation or a party where you might have over-indulged a little. The rule of thumb I always use is the “grandma” standard. If there is something that you wouldn’t want your grandmother (or your mom) seeing on the web, you don’t want a prospective employer viewing it either.

I still cringe at the photos I’ve seen on some Face book pages and in blogs. Some of the descriptions of the good times had by all are cringe-worthy, too, when you look at them from a “what they can do to your job search” perspective.