How Can I Check My Online Reputation for Free?
Someone Wrote Your Resume Without Asking You—It's Called Your Google Results
You spend hours perfecting your actual resume. Carefully chosen words, strategic formatting, curated accomplishments. Then someone searches your name and finds a different document entirely—one you never wrote, never approved, and probably never reviewed.
Your Google results are your real resume now. And unlike the PDF you submit, you don't control what's on it.
The Resume That Gets Read First
Traditional resumes get maybe 30 seconds of attention. Your Google results? Often searched before your resume is even opened.
Studies consistently show that 70% of employers research candidates online during the hiring process. Many do it before the first interview. Some do it before deciding whether to schedule one.
What they find doesn't supplement your carefully crafted application—it frames how everything else gets interpreted. A strong online presence creates a halo effect. A concerning result creates suspicion that colors every subsequent interaction.
And this extends far beyond job searches. Potential clients search vendors. Investors search founders. Customers search businesses. Partners search each other. Your Google results function as an introduction that happens before you enter the room.
The Document You've Never Reviewed
Here's what's strange: despite how often these searches happen, most people have never carefully examined their own results.
Quick self-searches happen occasionally. Thorough audits almost never do. People check page one, see nothing obviously terrible, and assume they're fine.
But page two exists. Image results exist. Review sites exist. Data broker profiles exist. Articles mentioning your name in passing exist. All of it can surface depending on how someone searches and what they're looking for.
The hiring manager doing due diligence doesn't stop at page one. The client considering a significant purchase digs deeper. The journalist researching a story checks everywhere.
You're being evaluated against a document you've never fully read.
What's Actually On This Unwritten Resume
When someone searches you, what appears functions like resume sections—except you didn't choose what to include:
Professional presence. Do LinkedIn, industry profiles, and work-related content dominate? Or is professional information sparse or buried?
Third-party validation. What have others said about you? Reviews, articles, mentions, recommendations—these function like references you never selected.
Red flags section. Any negative content automatically becomes the most-read part of your results. Complaints, legal issues, critical articles, unflattering social posts—they don't need to dominate to define perception.
Gaps and absences. A thin online presence creates its own concerns. In an era where everyone is online, having minimal results suggests either irrelevance or something being hidden.
Visual presentation. Your Google Image results function like a headshot attached to this resume. Professional photos, party pictures, mugshots, or nothing at all—each sends a different message.
Unlike your actual resume, you can't simply delete unflattering sections. This document persists and updates without your permission.
The Rejection Letters You'll Never Receive
When your Google results cost you an opportunity, nobody tells you.
The employer who found something concerning just picks another candidate. The client who saw negative reviews goes with a competitor. The connection who searched before your first meeting suddenly becomes unavailable.
You experience the outcome—silence, rejection, closed doors—without ever learning the cause. This makes reputation damage uniquely insidious. The consequences are real but the connection stays hidden.
Most people underestimate how much their online presence affects their opportunities because the feedback loop is broken. They assume rejection has other explanations. Sometimes it does. But sometimes a thirty-second Google search made the decision before anything else was considered.
Reading Your Own File
You can't edit a document you've never read. Before worrying about improving or protecting your online reputation, the baseline requirement is simply knowing what it says.
Search your name thoroughly. Use incognito mode to avoid personalized results. Check variations—full name, nicknames, name plus location or profession. Look beyond page one. Check image results. Search your business name if you have one.
What you find might be fine. Or it might explain patterns you couldn't previously account for.
If you want a comprehensive scan without doing it manually, Reputation Return offers a free tool called Rep Radar at https://reputationreturn.com/rep-radar that searches across multiple platforms to show exactly what appears when others look you up.
Either way, read the resume that's already being read about you. You might be surprised what's on it.
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