Having a Positive Digital Footprint

Having a positive digital footprint is very important even as a kid. This footprint will follow you throughout your whole life and can cause disruption if it becomes negative. Having a negative digital footprint can lead to you losing a job, ruin the chances of getting a good job or even into a good college, and can lead to things you don’t want friends and family seeing to them seeing them.

Employment is the main thing that makes having a positive digital footprint so important, “Employers are increasingly making use of Internet search engines to locate and evaluate online information about potential employees”(jaeger). Employers are using the internet to look into employees more and more, the internet holds everything a person has done online in one place and takes a few clicks to find out if a person has made a mistake or ruined their footprint, its also another way for employers to see if you are going to be a positive impact to their company or not.

Building a positive digital footprint is just as important as already having and maintaining one. There are many different ways to start and create a positive digital footprint, “Encouraging students to enter online writing, photography, film, and digital media competitions is also a great way to help them build a positive online profile”(Jalger). Entering different things will get people to look at your work and allow employers to see the good you do, another way is also applying through digital resumes, “Especially if a student wants to get a job in the growing field of digital media or design, then an online resume that showcases their skills and abilities to use different tools could be what gets them noticed.”(Jaeger).

Employers look for these things when it comes to hiring people, filling out a resume on paper can be good but doing it online shows you have the skills to do more and allows your employer to know you can use those tools. The world is growing with technology and the field of using technology is growing as well, showing employers that you can understand how to use it and use it in a good manner will stand out to employers. Having a positive digital footprint sets you up for success in life, every good employer will look into who you are online and you don’t want them to get a bad impression through a mistake you made as a kid. Starting your positive digital footprint now is setting yourself up for a greater outcome in the future.

“Laptop Orchestra @ Wired Nextfest 2006” by Adam Arroyo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.