(Ed. Note) The following article was submitted by Howard K. Young, a new member of The 405 Club who after 13 years lost his job as a Demand Planner. Thank you for sharing Howard.

My biggest nightmare was to start a job search at my age; however, looking back on the past two months, it would have been a far worse nightmare to stay exactly where I was. Being in job search mode and having a direction to go (although it seems to be nebulous at times) is far better than getting up and going to work each day, wondering how long your job is going to last, and wondering how you are going to pay the bills if you find yourself out of work. Now, on to the reason why I wrote this article.

When I went to Hempstead Works (the local unemployment center) at the end of last month, one of the counselors encouraged us to put our name in a search engine to see what comes up; The counselor informed us there could be something on the internet that a Human Resources person might misconstrue, which, in turn may prevent you from landing your next position. So, I put my name in the Google Search engine and I received the obligatory millions of results, but what was on the first few pages, really took me by surprise.

Here is a summary: - On page 1, there is an individual listed who writes a monthly blog, which uses some questionable language. Not that the language was obscene, but the blogs were poorly written. As a student of journalism, (I still write reviews for Amazon and Expedia under a pen name), it bothers me to see anything bearing my name that is written poorly. - On page 3, there was a Linked in profile. I thought this was my profile so I clicked on it. I immediately noticed some major differences: 1) I have always lived in the Northeast USA. This individual spent most of his life in the Southeast USA 2) The picture of this individual bearing my namesake also appears to be heavier than I am, and, he is also an African-American (My grandparents came from Russia and I am often told that my complexion gives a new meaning to the word “pale”). By the way, he appears to be a very intelligent person who has a strong technical background. 3) On page 3 there was an entry under my name that my Anti-Virus website flagged as a dangerous website.

So in summary, before you go on your next job interview, please be sure to check the popular search engines to see if there is anything negative when you input your name. At the very least, it will definitely make for some interesting conversation, and at best, you will make someone at personnel aware that you may not be the person who the company finds if they do a background check on you via the internet. It’s your future.

GOOD HUNTING TO ALL!

Sincerely, Howard K. Young