First impressions count...What first impression does your online profile make?

[Photo by McKay Savage]

What does your email address say about you?What first impressions might an email address give? What are some of the more eye-opening email addresses you've encountered?

Networking for Work's Email Address Scorecard“I feel tempted to send that scorecard to the owner of every CV I've ever read. As the largest emplyer in a city with two universities, we get a lot of CV's with many, many amusing email addresses. They don't think.” [Aviva employee]

Take control of your online personal profilesLook at your profiles whilst logged out or view them as a 'non-friend' would see them. It's very easy to tighten the privacy settings to restrict access if you want to.

[Photo by Ell Brown]

You can make a public Twitter profile private- Simply log into Twitter, go to 'Settings', select 'Protect my tweets' and save changes.- Bear in mind that your Twitter profile picture and bio will still be publicly viewable.

Assess and change your Facebook privacy settings- Use the simple how-to video by Digital Skills Network during this chapter.

If it's content others have posted about you...- You can 'untag' yourself from photos or posts you're on Facebook and remove them from your timeline.- If it's elsewhere a polite request to remove or amend the content will often do the trick.

If the content is anonline news article

- Is what's posted true?

- Could things be rectified with a few words or new juxtaposition (such as the above article)? Think about exactly what it is about the content you'd like to change if possible, rather than just saying you don't like it being there.

- If you're approaching a news organisation, find a named editor and lay out your issue carefully in writing, being specific about what is causing offence. An angry phone call won't help your cause.