By now all of us know that building a substantial online presence and leveraging a robust personal and professional network, both online and offline, are key components of career management. This is true for candidates at all levels, but most especially for my executive-level clientele. As a participant in the Career Thought Leaders Consortium, I’ve been following with interest some recent threads that have explored some of the potential issues that may be encountered with online networking.

Surveys and statistics consistently show that recruiters and hiring managers are increasingly using the Internet to source and research candidates, and in particular are focusing on social and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. While ensuring positive information about yourself is easily found in these searches is an important way to expose yourself to potential job opportunities, a dark side to this new candidate sourcing trend is emerging. To quote a recent email dispatched by Challenger, Gray & Christmas (as cited by my colleague Beverly Harvey):

“Social and professional networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, have become critical components of the job search. Digital networking is an effective and positive way to expand one’s connections and find potential job opportunities. A new entrant into the social networking world threatens to alter the landscape, and not necessarily for the better. Unvarnished.com ( http://www.getunvarnished.com/beta ) provides users the opportunity to post anonymous reviews of co-workers, bosses, subordinates, etc. The website’s founders said in a Chicago Tribune article that the site “encourages candid and nuanced information about prospective hires, bosses and business partners.” However, many are concerned that the site will open a Pandora’s Box of negative, spiteful, dishonest reviews. The fact that the reviewer remains anonymous further complicates matters by making it impossible to determine the veracity of any claims, whether they are positive or negative.”

While one might hope that recruiters would not place great stock in a free-for-all, unbridled site with absolutely no fact verification processes, it is likely true that due to human nature, negative information of any kind might easily eliminate a candidate from further consideration. Given two equally qualified candidates, which would you choose: the one with nothing but positive information out there, or the one who received a bad review on one or more of the sites you visited?

Another colleague, Meg Guiseppi, cited a blog post by Dan Schawbel regarding the site which was entitled, “Unvarnished Changes Personal Brand Reputation Management Forever.” Dan commented, “”When Unvarnished launches, everyone in the world will be held accountable for their brands on it, and it will force everyone to search their name online much more often. You will also have to claim your profile page before someone else does for you.”

Unvarnished is not alone in this space, and I am quite sure that more such sites will be popping up as time goes on. A couple of other fairly prominent sites candidates need to be concerned about and monitor include Yelp and Spokeo. If you check yourself out on Spokeo, I pretty much guarantee you will be “creeped out”–I know I was. I found a lot of eerily accurate information, along with some wildly inaccurate data. (You can go to this particular site and opt out, which I recommend).

As Leslie Gaines-Ross in her Harvard Business Review blog entry “Unvarnished: Your Personal Reputation in the Crosshairs” stated:
“What are Unvarnished’s creators thinking? How can this be good? With no accountability and no restraints, people will review and rate bosses who fired them, colleagues who rose above them, clients who complained about them, romantic targets who proved immune to their charms. Rumors, innuendo, and hearsay will be aired, regardless of whether even a scrap of truth lies beneath them.”

Have you ever fired anyone? Had a disgruntled subordinate? Been the face of the company to a very unhappy customer? If any of these or limitless other possible negative scenarios are in your career history, the potential for vengeful, negative comments about you on one or more of these sites could be a concern. We all now have an even more compelling need to monitor our brand in cyberspace.