What's your reputation online? Not your company's… I'm asking you about your own. If I Google you, will I get an impression of you close to how you see yourself and the way you want other professionals to see you?

That's the subject of this very interesting, relevant and timely item in BRANDWEEK this morning by Dan Schawbel and Brandon Reiser. Mr. Schawbel is a marketing consultant, Web designer, blogger and market strategist, based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Mr. Reiser is a search engine marketer based in Irvine, California.

Here are some sobering facts presented in their column:

Over 77% of employers will Google a job candidate; 35% of those candidates won't get the job because the boss finds negative or explicit content on social media Web pages.

The authors then proceed to explain how you can polish your image and make sure your own presentation of yourself gets seen ahead of the not so flattering things about you that may be floating around out there on the Internet:

We submit that there's one cure for the boss' Google search: Online-reputation management. It will place the image a marketer creates of himself ahead of the undesirable flotsam. It'll also differentiate him as a unique, skilled professional.

Do take a minute to read this item in its entirety if you want to maintain your own high quality personal brand.

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