You may have heard this phrase before:
“It’s not who you know… but who knows you – and what they say about you.”
I believe that statement is very true, but since we live in an increasingly online world, maybe it should be modified to:
“It’s not who you know, or what they say about you… it’s what Google says about you.”
Case in point – a short email I received last week:
Wondering if Curt was on to something, I Googled the phrase “best recruiter in the world” and here’s what I found:
The first two unpaid hits out of over 2,200 results came from a tongue-in-cheek post on this blog from July 2009:
I’m no SEO expert, but I did choose the title intentionally back then, assuming that it’s possible people (ideally client companies) sometimes go to Google and start with that phrase when looking for a Recruiter. A long shot I know. But nothing ventured, nothing gained right? As someone responsible for developing my own business, I try to use every option available to me.
Looks like my title strategery worked a little better than I expected – or at least it worked well enough to give me a laugh. And Curt got a nice response for being a little more creative than the too often used – “I see you’re a Recruiter. Can you help me find a job?”
This cheeky little example was a good reminder for me of how important it is to be mindful of what I put out there on the interwebs. Like it or not, your credibility (and mine) is being judged every day by people searching Google (and other search engines) who are finding your blog posts, tweets, LinkedIn profile, etc.
