If Google Says I'm the Best Recruiter in the World... It Must Be True

You may have heard this phrase before:

"It's not who you know... but who knows you - and what they say about you."

I believe that statement is very true, but since we live in an increasingly online world, maybe it should be modified to:

"It's not who you know, or what they say about you... it's what Google says about you."

Case in point - a short email I received last week:

Wondering if Curt was on to something, I Googled the phrase "best recruiter in the world" and here's what I found:

The first two unpaid hits out of over 2,200 results came from a tongue-in-cheek post on this blog from July 2009:

I'm no SEO expert, but I did choose the title intentionally back then, assuming that it's possible people (ideally client companies) sometimes go to Google and start with that phrase when looking for a Recruiter. A long shot I know. But nothing ventured, nothing gained right? As someone responsible for developing my own business, I try to use every option available to me.

Looks like my title strategery worked a little better than I expected - or at least it worked well enough to give me a laugh. And Curt got a nice response for being a little more creative than the too often used - "I see you're a Recruiter. Can you help me find a job?"

This cheeky little example was a good reminder for me of how important it is to be mindful of what I put out there on the interwebs. Like it or not, your credibility (and mine) is being judged every day by people searching Google (and other search engines) who are finding your blog posts, tweets, LinkedIn profile, etc.

Thankfully, Google got it right this time.

Let's be careful out there...

This post originally appeared on CincyRecruiter's World on April 26, 2010.

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Comment by Slouch on April 27, 2010 at 12:14am: Google loves Blogs and content often.

Comment by Doron Vermaat on April 27, 2010 at 2:31am: Make a wild guess which blog post is currently the nr 1 result for "best recruiter in the world" ;)

Comment by Jennifer McClure on April 27, 2010 at 9:23am: @Slouch - Maybe another good reason why even third party recruiters can get some business benefit from blogging with targeted content and titles...

@Doron - Nothing happens by accident. :)

Comment by Slouch on April 27, 2010 at 10:17am: Jennifer, Absolutely.

Comment by Dina Harding on April 27, 2010 at 11:38pm: It's all of the little things that turn into something big. A very good post, Jennifer! Thanks for sharing :D

Comment by Jennifer McClure on April 28, 2010 at 8:45am: Thanks Dina!

Comment by Dave Opton on April 28, 2010 at 7:53pm: Jennifer,

Building your brand online takes a lot of time and effort and even then unless the content you share is of value to others it is probably short-lived at best. You do a super job of contributing to your profession and deserve to be rewarded and recognized for your efforts.

Comment by Jennifer McClure on April 30, 2010 at 9:19am: It's definitely a process to build content on the web and it takes work and planning, just like any other business development or brand building activity. Thanks for your kind comment!

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