Ready Kids › First Job Ready › Badge 2 › Lesson 2.1
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Your reputation, including online
Look yourself up the way a hiring parent would, and change one thing.
1Watch
The search
The search
A parent at a laptop types a sitter's name and town. Results: a public profile, a video, a group photo. Their hand moves to the mouse, and the film ends.
18 secondsEvery parent does this. Most of them will never tell you they did.
2The idea
Reputation is what they find
Before a parent rings your reference, they type your name into a search bar. What comes up is your reputation, whether you meant it to be or not. They are not looking for a saint. They are looking for one thing: does this person seem like someone who would keep my kid safe.
What they notice: your bio, and whether your school and year are in it. Photos, and whether any read as reckless. Comments, and how you talk to people. Who is tagged, and how old they look. Whether any of it is public at all. Fair or not, it is happening. The second of the Two Questions works for posts too: would I be happy telling Mum about this after?
3The idea
The audit, step by step
1. Log out, or borrow a friend’s phone, and search your name and your town.
2. Open every result as a stranger would.
3. For each thing, ask: would a parent hiring me want to see this?
4. Fix it: delete, make private, or change the bio.
5. Check photos other people have tagged you in.
6. Do it again in three months.
Private is the default for anything you would not put on a poster outside school. That is not about hiding. It is about choosing who can find you, which is a decision you are allowed to make on purpose instead of by accident. A public account with your school in the bio has made the decision for you.
4The idea
Aisha's audit
Aisha searches herself, logged out. She finds her handle is public, her bio has her school and year in it, there is a video of her mouthing a rude song, and thirty comments from people she has never met. Nothing terrible. But a parent sees where she goes to school, and that strangers talk to her.
She sets the account private, takes the school out of the bio, keeps the video because it is funny and harmless, and blocks the strangers. Twenty minutes. She did not become boring. She stopped being findable by people she did not pick.
5Your turn
Audit a profile
Audit a profile
A fictional sitter's profile: bio, twelve posts, tagged photos, comments. Tap everything a hiring parent would notice, and each tap explains why. At the end it hands you a checklist to run on your own accounts.
There is a trap in there: one post that looks bad and is fine, and one that looks fine and is not.
6Decide
A parent looks you up. Which of these would actually worry them?
Pick one to carry on.
7Look
Two bios
Two bios
The same account with two bios side by side: one reads Year 8, Northfield School, DM me; the other reads a first name, sitter, first aid trained, ask a parent for my number.
Same person. One of them gets hired.
8Find them
Which of these should a hiring parent not be able to find?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Look yourself up tonight, logged out, name and town. Pick one thing to change and change it. Tell a parent what it was and why.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
A hiring parent will look you up. Assume they find everything, and make what they find someone you would hire.
Next lesson: Your one-page résumé