We make choices every day that affect other people’s perception of us.  Things from the clothes we wear to our choice of words in our speech.  However, most people don’t extend this to their professional identity and online identity.  In today’s increasingly interconnected world, it is often difficult to separate these two.  Most people give little thought to these views of themselves, chalking it up to extensions of their personal identity, as opposed to an image that they have some degree of control over.

Our professional identity should help us succeed in the professional world.  This can include a career at a corporation, an entrepreneur, an artist  or even academia.  We are able to publicize and shape what people see of us.  A business card is a simple, common example of this.  My father stressed the importance of the business card; It’s a tangible object that communicates your basic information to the other party.   If you have the ‘discount’ business cards that look and feel cheap, you’re prone to being seen as less legitimate than your peers.  It’s a small and trivial thing, but there’s no need to negatively differentiate yourself.  Rest assured that I have more to say on this at a later date.

A simple step such as making known your accomplishments goes a long way towards improving your professional identity as well.  The majority of people use their résumé (or curriculum vitae for the academics) for this purpose.  That is a good first step, and few would argue the importance of your résumé, but it doesn’t end there.  Employers, potential business partners, and even your SO’s family will use the resources of the internet to find out more about you.  After all, if the roles were reversed, wouldn’t you?  An employer wants to make sure you are who you say you are, and won’t bring any demons into the company… or they just want to know a little bit more about you to make conversation.  In any event, you don’t want something unflattering to show up when they look for you.

If you have your own website (ahem) try and get the to come up as the first result when people search for you.  Populate it with information that goes past what’s on your résumé.  A little bit about yourself, other projects and achievements, and links to your other online identities.  These other identities include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and any other sites that you have control over what is shown. 

For those without their own online presence, ensure that your online profiles are sanitized from the view of non-friends.  If you have photos or tweets hat don’t show you in the best light, be sure that you play with the privacy settings to either hide or remove anything that you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with the world.  Take advantage of LinkedIn profiles, as these are often highly rated by the search engines if you have content available on these sites.  If you have an old blog from a possibly ‘angsty’ time of your life, again, set it to private or remove it if you don’t want a prospective employer seeing it. 

Oh, and don’t post anything stupid to Twitter or Facebook in the first place.  The internet has a very long memory.