Tenure-Track Job Applicants, Google Yourself Before Applying: Tips From a Search Committee Chair

My friend and CSULB Associate Professor Ragan Fox posted some tips for folks on the job market for tenure-track positions. Good advice, much of which I'd recommend for writing cover letters for said jobs: know your audience, mention the department's courses and curriculum in your letter and link it to your own teaching strengths, note the impact of your research, etc. One tip I would add is to manage your impression, before even arriving on campus (provided you're fortunate enough to get an interview). The best way to do this: be aware of your online profile.

Managing Your Impression Online

I think most tenure-track applicants probably have some kind of online profile, whether it's a facebook account, a twitter feed, or a website. But what will the hiring committee see when looking for you online and, more importantly, what will they think about they find? Will they find your Walking Dead commentary as pithy as you do?

I've chaired and been on search committees, and I have Googled every single interview candidate as well as many of our second tier choices. Below I list the results I've encountered, from best result to what I consider the least desirable result:

Online Search Results of Tenure-Track Job Applicants: From Best to Worst

1a. Sometimes I'll come across a professional website that's near the top of the search results. As a search committee member, this is the best possible outcome of such a search: a decent-looking website with professional information on it: CV, publications, jobs, etc. This could also hold true for a person's listing on a faculty or graduate student page at a university. Mine's been around a while and isn't great, but it gets the job done. Search my name and it's one of the first sites to come up.

1b. An Academia.edu site. These seem to be taking the place of some faculty's professional websites. A good resource.

1c. A Linkedin profile. Yes, Jack Donaghy makes fun of it, but as a search committee member wanting information on an applicant, it's better than nothing.

2. The next best result is a listing of article links or publication titles. Sure, I could get this if I search Google Scholar, but having some kind of hit: citations for articles, popular press articles, mentions in the media, stories about awards given (maybe on a university's website), etc. tells me that this person is active academically-speaking. The same is true if I click on "Books" and search the candidate's name: Did they write a book? Awesome. Are they cited in books? Great.

3. A professional-looking Google profile is the next best result. Sure, it may not be "academic" in the sense of number 1 or 2, but it shows me that at least the candidate is aware of their online profile enough to care what people see in a search and to take care to manage that impression.

4. It wouldn't count as a negative (to me) to see a listing of facebook and/or twitter links in the search results. Not as good as the above, but not too bad. It doesn't show a lot of care taken to manage one's online impression, but it doesn't necessarily indicate obliviousness.

5. However, if I click on one of these links and get a facebook page with pics of partying with fraternity or sorority members, girlfriends at the bar, guys acting foolish (given particular privacy settings)... Well, I have to wonder. There's certainly nothing wrong with this, and I wouldn't think less of the person, but remember: this is a committee member researching a job applicant, and simply: This is my first impression of you as a candidate. Is that what you want?

6. Still, the worst possible result (provided there are no mug shots, arrest records, or news stories about the applicant running naked through the streets) is a listing of random links to random comments and sites that I can't tell whether or not belong to the job applicant. This tells me nothing about the applicant, and I don't have time to click every link and see if it the applicant. I'm not going to cyber stalk every one of our 100-plus job applicants.

So, numbers 5 and 6 above: Is that really what you want your impression to be for the person making decisions about whether to interview you and hire you? Granted, a strong vita and application packet would nullify any of that (usually except arrest records and mug shots) and get you into the interview. But as a committee member, I can't say wouldn't think about that first impression I had if the decision was a close one. Would this negative online impression be a deciding factor? No, probably not. Would it be in the back of my mind as I read your file? Definitely. I speak from experience.

Googling Yourself Isn't Just for Celebrities

What, then, should job applicants do? Create a website? Yes. That's my recommendation. Its too easy nowadays not to have a website.

Additionally, I suggest doing a search every so often by entering your name into multiple search engines. Try and get your desired site to come up first. At the least, know what others see of you and about you when they search your name as it appears on your vita. With all the applicants on the tenure-track job hunt, why leave anything to chance?