Linking up

I've been having a serious go today at updating my LinkedIn presence - and it has proved to be a great way to get back in touch with people again. Actually, I was prompted by someone else asking to link to me, but it has been well worth the last hour spent bringing some more contacts on board and tidying up various bits and pieces of my networking presence - I even got my first recommendation (having always been too shy to ask in the past), so thanks Pauline at RBS.

Like most freelancers I'm talking to at the moment, my work situation isn't great. In fact, hearing about the jobless figures spiralling towards two million today made me think that very many self-employed people are the silent jobless at present. In theory we're employed by our companies, but if we're one or two-person operations, and there's little or no work coming in, we're as good as unemployed. Thankfully things aren't that bad here - work's slow, but at least I've got meetings in the diary and know that I'll be able to get at least a couple of invoices out this month.

And today's LinkedIn effort has already led to a couple more meetings. That may not lead to anything, but hey, if you don't try, there's no chance of getting anywhere.

Cybervetting and all that

I'm having an interesting dig in the digital dirt to put together a piece on NetReps, cyber-vetting and all that, and it has got me to thinking about my own cyber presence. I obviously blog, but my footprint's also all over my Facebook profile, My LinkedIn profile and, as of today, my ViaDeo profile (though I can't find it at the moment!).

I'm also listed on the CiB freelance directory, the CIoJ's directory and in one or two others that are only on paper. Somewhere in cyberspace, old versions of my cv are sitting on Monster, at the IABC and one one or two other sites - and all probably say slightly different things.

Now for me that's not a problem. I run my own business and I'm not looking for another job. but what if I was? Is my footprint consistent? Are there flaws in my NetRep that might exclude me from that perfect job or do the inconsistencies in my online presence raise any questions in recruiters' minds? On the other hand, is cyber-me so exciting that search specialists might just check me out to see if I'm interested in prospective roles?

Before today, I hadn't really given it much thought....perhaps now I should devote a few minutes to eliminating any prospective web-negativity.....or maybe not.