the online you

Hello again and welcome to the fourth post on of tree tales! In this post, I will be reflecting on the online profile that people have been creating for themselves and the importance of keeping it professional in an age were the majority of communication is now done though various technologies.

To begin, lets look at what an online profile is. In simple terms, your online profile is really whatever you make of it! Anytime you join a new website, such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Linkedin, etc., you add to this profile. Another example contributing to your online profile is a blog, and for an example of this you  can visit the blog by my classmate Becky. When taken all together it creates an online you and it provides others with the opportunity to get to know a little about you. This being said, these online profiles can sometimes be very detrimental if the wrong information about you gets posted, especially when it comes to employment.

some examples of various different sites that you can add to your online profile

With social media becoming more and more integrated with how our society functions, more and more employers are turning to searching the internet prior to hiring new employees. This can potentially effect the chances of getting a job if they find something that they deem as inappropriate, such as a Facebook profile with mostly drunk pictures of you. On the flip side, this can also be used as a means of presenting these people with the side of you you want them to see. An excellent example of this is the Facebook page we created in this class that can be used almost like a second cover letter and resume. Here is another article which demonstrates how to make a personal/ professional Facebook page using the various privacy setting that are offered.

On the note of privacy settings, another important consideration that needs to be thought about when creating a profile is your online security. There are many, many cases of people's accounts being hacked and their identities stolen. For me personally I find the best defense against such things happening is to use common sense. Things such as changing your password every so often, avoid giving away sensitive information such as credit card numbers and sticking to websites that you know and trust are all good ways to make such you and your identity stays safe when you are using the internet.

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          Retrieved from Google images April 11, 2012; http://everything.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c82369e20112790a4fc728a4-800wi