DEAR JOYCE: In a recent column concerning the enormous increase of data breaches that can be used to steal identities, I wish you had mentioned Google Alerts for early warnings about potential identity thefts or, probably much more common, identity mix-ups. Google Alerts are free and very easy to set up.
Go to Google.com/alerts, and type your name into the "Search terms" box. If you surround your name with quotation marks, Google will understand that the words in the name are a phrase and will look for all the words together on a page rather than each word separately. This reduces the number of results, and increases their usefulness.
I recommend selecting "Everything" as the "Type," and "Once a day" as the "How often" selection. I would choose "up to 50 results" as the "e-mail length," which means that Google will send messages when a new item appears in the first five pages of search results (which is 50 results). Five pages are usually as deeply as anyone looks, and often, people don't review results past the first page (10 results).
Up to 1,000 Alerts can be established when a Google account is set up -- for potential employers, industry news, and so forth. To protect themselves, job seekers can and, I think, should monitor their names using Google Alerts. -- Susan P. Joyce, publisher, Job-Hunt.org.
I think so, too, after being shocked to see my pets' superb veterinarian of 14 years wrongly reviled on a so-called online "review" site by an anonymous coward. (Oh yeah, you can bet I responded.)
That recent experience highlighted the fact that we increasingly live in an era of reputation management. It convinced me that you are spot-on in advising job seekers to use the free Google Alerts service as a defense warning.
Internet damage has real repercussions -- especially for job seekers. Even when the only thing you share with a bad apple is a common name, without the facts you can't effectively defend yourself when trying to clear up matters. How high is the risk factor? The majority of employers say they now Google candidates.
Thanks, Susan P. Joyce. Your respected website, job-hunt.org, is teeming with good information, including an employer directory, arranged by state, that links to thousands of employer recruiting pages, job sites, support groups and more.