The following is a page from my upcoming book, 1000 resumes, One Job (an employer’s perspective). Although this book is written to help people to take inventory, reinvent and reposition themselves during a job search, it can easily be adapted for all business situations.

The internet has made the world a very small place.

Go to Google, Yahoo or Bing, type in your full name and see what comes up. When I do a search for myself, there are links to posts that I made all the way ck to the 90s, there are links to my MySpace page (although I haven’t used MySpace for a couple years ), links to Facebook, LinkedIn, businesses that I own or owned, businesses that I have managed or worked for. Frankly, it’s frightening.

Much of your life and entire internet history is right there for people to see.

Interviewers and prospective bosses can and will see a lot of your history in a matter of minutes.

They can learn how you talk, act, think, who you associate with and whether the information on your resume matches with what they see on the internet.

If you look at the screenshot, you’ll see a reference to my being a Director of Sales for Speedway Copy Systems. I left this position in 2000 and it still shows up. There are press releases that I posted when I was a Sales Manager for Kinko’s in 1993. The internet has a long memory and it’s critical that you spend some time positioning or repositioning yourself.

Take a look at all of your social networking sites and make sure that your posts are positive or at least neutral.

Religious and political fanaticism on either side of the spectrum can keep you from getting hired. Constant misspellings or poor grammar in your posts will lead the reader to think that you are sloppy. Photos or posts about drinking or drugs and photos that can be taken the wrong way or are too revealing will definitely keep you from getting hired. Hiring Managers have to make the best decisions for their company and if your Internet Reputation makes you look like you are a bad risk, they will make that decision to not hire you without asking for your input.

Is this fair?

Of course not, but ask yourself what you would do if you were responsible for the productivity of a group of employees. You would surround yourself with the best people who you can trust.

As you are looking to promote yourself during your job search, you are bringing your best to the position. You don’t want something like this to be the reason you are passed over. It is critically important that you focus on reputation management and delete anything in your social networking sites that may be misconstrued and is not in alignment with your resume and your goals.

Don’t assume that privacy settings will keep your information private. Do assume that everyone has access to your online history.

Remember, “How would the person you’d like to be…do the things you are about to do?”