If you’re in the market for a new job or just want to keep your social presence on lock, there’s a new tool that makes it easier to find posts that you might not want your future boss to see.
BrandYourself, a company that’s been around since 2009 to help you keep your social presence squeaky clean, launched an online reputation tool that scans your Google search results, Facebook page and Twitter profile for potentially employer-unfriendly posts and results. It builds the following:
Reputation score: A credit score for your online reputation, according to the company. It gives you a number up to 800 and rates your presence from Very Poor to Excellent.
Reputation report: The report identifies which factors may be affecting your reputation most (for example, it flags tweets and Facebook posts it thinks could do you harm).
Reputation builder: A to-do list for creating a better online reputation.
It took a few minutes to analyze my accounts, and gave me some good feedback. But there are limitations. At least for the free versions, the site sifts through your Facebook and Twitter pages and Google search results, leaving your various other social profiles vulnerable. For most people, this means your Instagram. If you’re in the middle of a job hunt, consider putting it on private, or cleaning up posts you wouldn’t want a future boss to see. (On that note, all of your social profiles that aren’t for work should be private. Come on, now.)
More importantly, it seems to only search for certain words, like “sex,” and images, like a beer bottle, and mark them as negative regardless of context. I received a “Poor” score of 413 out of 800 on the free test. BrandYourself flagged a lot of posts on my Twitter feed that were either 1) articles from the publication I worked for, or 2) article headlines from events in the news—like President Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, and Trump encouraging people to check out Alicia Machado’s sex tape when she spoke out against him during the campaign (remember that?). It appears that the tool, at least the free version, is not quite prepared for the crassness of the Trump presidency.
You can upgrade to a yearly version (that auto-renews) for $99.96, that lets you set filters and delete posts directly from the website. (Or if Twitter is your problem, you can Advance Search the suspect posts that BrandYourself flags and delete them from your account.)