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BLUF: Any suggestions on how to address a MySpace site held by someone with your name that is not you when applying for a job.

My name is not especially common, but as luck would have it I did a self-Google prior to applying for and receivng a recent promotion (I submitted the application and interviewed right before the MySpace casts came out) and discovered the MySpace site (right at the top of the hit list no less). I was a little concerned but let it ride since the person was clad and there did not appear to be anything that would really reflect negatively on me by mistake. It would also be evident via the interview (assuming I would get this far) that this person was not me.

Any thoughts on this or suggestions the next time around on how to tactfully distance yourself from this sort of thing. I've felt a little bit like I left it to chance and may have been lucky. There is always next time, however.... Surely I can't be the only reader who has come across this situation. Thanks.

P.S. It may be a little amusing when I introduce myself to my new staff and the internet savvy among them discover that I am not a cute, blonde coed.

tlhausmann's picture
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[quote="mdave"]
Any thoughts on this or suggestions the next time around on how to tactfully distance yourself from this sort of thing. [/quote]

If someone brings it up say, "That's not me" and move on. No drama needed.

jhack's picture

Better yet, establish your profile as the top hits in Google.

John

escuccim's picture

What can one do to get results moved up and down in Google? A Google on my name turns up some really outrageous stuff for the first couple of results, then my LinkedIn and other profiles are on the first page.

I'd like to know if anyone has any ideas on how to get the results I want up higher or the top ones lower.

HMac's picture

[quote="mdave"]BLUF: Any suggestions on how to address a MySpace site held by someone with your name that is not you when applying for a job.[/quote]

mdave - Concentrate on what you can control, and let go of what you can't control.

Just a thought: I suspect that hiring managers checking social media might be less common than one would believe listening to M-T podcasts and reading the forums. This is not to dispute that SOME hiring managers do it, and probably more will do it in the future. And in some sectors, like IT, it's possible that proportionally more hiring managers do it. But you might be concerned about something that's not gonna happen.

And a second thought: you gotta hope that if a hiring manager is making the effort to check social media, that hiring manager is also going to take time to read enough to understand there's somebody out there with the same name as you, and - as you say - it's pretty obviously not you.

-Hugh

lazerus's picture

Some things you can do to get a better " rank" in Google:
[list]Buy a domain with your name if you can (www.jefflazerus.com in my case),
use Wordpress or Blogger to make your own blog, even if it is just your resume.
Post to a lot of industry specific forums using you real name.
Make reasonable well thought out comments to blog posts by others.
Convince other bloggers to put a link to your site in their blog (the best way to improve Google page rank is to have high quality links coming in.
[/list:u]
These things are easy. There's a lot more you can do to improve your standing in the search engines, and about half the pages on the internet are taken up by this subject! :wink:

thaGUma's picture

mdave, do not worry. the hiring manager checking MySpace will also check that the MySpace details are the same as the applicant. It is common to see more than one person with the same name. Even if your name is less common, the process is the same.

Chris