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I was recently asked to help a former employer conduct a search for a new Chief Operating Officer. I retained a leading search firm and within two weeks they sent bios for two highly qualified candidates. Each had impeccable credentials but both were rejected by the CEO: "No good," he wrote in an email, "...I want to see more resumes." When I called to ask why he didn't want to meet the candidates, his reply surprised me. He explained that he had "googled" them both and was unimpressed.

The first candidate, who claimed to have pioneered a new technology, was nowhere to be found on the Web. "If he had done something," Greg said dismissively, "he would have left footprints." The other gentleman had left footprints, but unfortunately not the right kind. His strongly-worded message about a controversial political issue offended Greg personally and the candidate was out.

And that's when I realized how dramatically recruitment had changed. These two gentlemen had built extremely successful careers. Each resume was filled with stories of increased revenues, business transformations, cost reductions and improved profits and yet both had been undone by a simple Google search.

How can executives take their brand online?

• First and foremost: Be careful about what you say online. Before you post a comment, essay or opinion on a web site, imagine a potential employer. If you wouldn't want that person reading the message, don't hit "send." On other hand, writing business-related articles and posting to serious forums regarding business issues is an excellent way to build a positive online presence.
   
• Second: If you have a personal website, make sure it is not indexed in the search engines. You can do this by placing a simple piece of HTML code on each page. Recently Sarah, a senior IT executive who was seeking Fortune 500 consulting assignments, came to me with a resume which included a URL. When I checked her site, I found a collection of poetry and biblical quotations along with some photographs of her wedding anniversary. After only a five minute conversation, Sarah understood why she had to remove the URL from her resume and business cards and yet this had not occurred to her previously. Another recent client — a young software developer — had created a site to host samples of his code. His home page began with the sentence "Hey there! Just ignore the typos — I plan to fix them when I move this site to a new server." Not surprisingly, people had been ignoring more than the typos!
   
• Third: You must establish your own web presence and take control of your personal brand before someone else does. The Internet is the perfect medium for demonstrating your value. The interactive nature of the Web allows you to provide a more complete profile than is possible on a resume. An effective web portfolio might incorporate management insights, Q&A sessions, work samples, testimonials, photographs, personal information and anything else that enhances your brand. Even video or audio clips may be appropriate although this depends entirely on your ability to present well and speak fluently.
   
• Fourth: Unless you are a web developer, hire a professional to create your website. It's becoming easier and easier to create websites using programs such as Front Page or Dreamweaver — but an unprofessional portfolio will do more harm than good. If you don't know how to program your site to work with all operating systems and Internet browsers, it may not work in some instances; if you don't optimize your images, they may open too slowly on someone else's system, and if you are not a trained designer, the chances are that our site won't look the way you want it to. As Tom Peters once wrote: "when you're promoting brand You, everything you do — and everything you choose not to do — communicates the value and character of the brand." For this reason, it is essential that web portfolios be professionally developed.

The Internet will increasingly be used as a means to research candidates prior to interviews or before a job offer is made. Recruiters and executives increasingly use Internet search engines for candidate research and web-savvy Gen-Xers are now moving into positions of corporate power. This is why I urge all executives and those striving to reach executive positions to update their job search startegies and career marketing materials to include an online presence.