Online profiles can aid in seeking employment
By Andrea Coombes
CBS MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO — Want to stand out from other job seekers? An online profile may be one way to do that.
Send a link to your online profile in an e-mail to prospective employers. Ziggs.com, a company that launched in October, offers online profiles for $25 a year, with the first year free.
"The online profile gives so much (more information than) the resume. It's a great point of differentiation," said Tim DeMello, chief executive at Ziggs.
The profile you create includes a snapshot page with photo and quick introduction, a more detailed biography and a faux interview, where the applicant decides which questions to answer.
Unlike networking sites such as LinkedIn and Ryze, Ziggs' profiles are also a means to maintain a semblance of control over one's online "brand."
For $50 a year (on top of the $25), the company will ensure your profile tops the list of sponsored searches when anyone searches your name using a major Internet search engine such as Google or Yahoo.
"Your name being in search listings is important and the information attached to it is important," DeMello said. Employers are "going to look at that, even before they invite you in for an interview.
"The way Ziggs got started is I found out that out of 100 random search-engine queries, about five out of 10 are proper names," he said. "They're looking for us and we need to make sure we are presented right."
Some job seekers have no online presence to worry about, but even those who do should consider this: Employers conducting online searches may be more interested in finding information that you're not about to reveal in a profile.
"We've had instances where we were ready to hire and a Google search revealed (this lawyer) had been released from jail a year earlier," said Ira Halperin, co-head of the corporate practice unit at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein &
Breitstone, a business law firm based in Mineola, N.Y.
"That was not on his resume," Halperin said, adding that the company conducts an Internet search on every potential employee.
For Halperin, an online profile makes little sense from a hiring perspective. Because the profile is written by the applicant, "obviously it's going to be filtered."
Internet searches "are a free opportunity to do some checking that takes minimal effort," he said. "I have a sense that it is common not only among law firms but anyone who's hiring these days."
Some note that those posting online profiles should avoid adding photos.
"Recruiters do not want to see the ethnic background of an individual prior to the interview," said Mark Mehler, co-author of CareerXroads, a directory of job sites.
"They could be accused of discrimination."
