It used to be relatively easy to keep our professional lives separate from our personal lives.  In today's digital age, those two worlds are colliding. Your on-line persona can influence your professional reputation.  A new suit, a firm handshake and a sharp resume won't necessarily be the only impression potential employers get of you. More and more employers are using the power of the internet to get up close and personal with potential employees.

Pay attention to your personal brand - your email address, personal profile, photos and postings among other things. Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail and Editor at Wired Magazine) summed it up as: "your brand isn't what you say it is, it's what Google says it is."  According to Mitch Joel's blog on the subject, in the real world, you are who you are - people have a general idea about you based on speaking, meeting and watching your actions. In the online world, it's pretty common to have multiple identities.

Have you done an ego search lately?  Go to Google, type in your name and see what you get.  Professional head shots or photos of you at a work related event, or pics of your last wild and crazy party. What does your profile say about you on social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace? Watch out for those quizzes that tell you which "Sex in the City" character you most resemble!  Avoid creating email aliases like jane.hotbody@xyz.com. Like a tattoo on a badly aging body, your on-line persona lasts forever . . . and it isn't always pretty.

According to an IPSOS Reid poll conducted in November 2007, 81% of women indicate they are conscious of the impact their online activities could have on their image, compared to 70 per cent of men.  Despite women's apparent savvy about the effect of their personal brand on their reputation, a full 40% of women say they don't know how to use the internet to promote themselves compared to 33% of men and only about a fifth of women see the internet as a means to propel their career to the next level.  So what are you waiting for?  Start managing your on-line persona with the aim of building up a body of evidence about your abilities, be they in your current job or related to your hobbies and volunteer activities, and make sure that when someone Google your name, the search results are a reflection of your achievements.