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[scientiffikk]

How valuable is a webpage/homepage in addition to the CV?  Other seekers, do you have one, and what is on it?  SC members, do you look at these and what is your opinion?

If I set one up, it would have to be on an outside server, i.e. MyName.com rather than on MyInstitution.edu.  Does this detract from the professionalism of the page?

Also, I'm searching for faculty positions at research intensive universities, not so much at liberal arts colleges.

Thanks.

[wutan]

I have one. It's in one of the subdirectories of my main website, and thus it resides on my institution's web server. I don't know how valuable it is, because it basically contains the same information as the job application (i.e. CV and professional statements) but with clickable links for my papers and suchlike.

In my science field, having a website with your job material seems very common. Most of the candidates I was competing against last year had one, and it sure was enlightening for us poor joob seekers who did not land a position that round.

[larryc]

I am going to google you, so try to control the results. A professional webpage is the best way to do this. It does not matter where it is hosted.

By the way, the easiest way to do this is to get a Blogger blog and post your vita as perhaps the only entry. Five minutes and you have a simple attractive site with the domain yourname.blogspot.com.

[trabb]

To me, this is kind of like asking "should I send this fourth letter of reference"?  It really depends.  If it's high-quality stuff that makes you look like someone I would want to hire (and yes, I actually get to be on a search committee this year! go me.), then by all means, yes.  It can't hurt and it might help - see larryc's post.  If it's shoddy work with broken links and images that don't load, please don't.  That leaves such a bad impression...

[historian]

I am going to google you, so try to control the results. A professional webpage is the best way to do this. It does not matter where it is hosted.

By the way, the easiest way to do this is to get a Blogger blog and post your vita as perhaps the only entry. Five minutes and you have a simple attractive site with the domain yourname.blogspot.com.

I was introduced to the "alternative me" through this method at an interview---"so, you are a tennis champion!"   Huh?  Then a couple of other questions along those lines.  Googling my *somewhat* uncommon name, I wondered why they didn't lead with "aren't you supposed to be in jail?"  Seeing that someone with the same name came up frequently on page one of the results as head of a big check kiting ring in a nearby state and the summer before had been convicted and sentenced to a long term in jail.  Apparently "I'm" also a high school track champ, head of some sort of religious organization,  and have a dermatology practice--all in places far distant from each other. Oh, and I was dead according to an obituary in Wisconsin.

   The real me only comes up with random c.v. items but the "alternative" me is always doing suprising things all over the country. I now Google myself every now and then to find out what "I'm" supposedly up to. I recommend it. I thought that original SC kind of nuts.  Well, I still do since they pushed and pushed to try to get me to admit to being one of the other "Jane Doe" people they found on-line.

Never heard from them again but given my (undoubted) look of "wtf?" by question three or four in that vein, I'm sure I seemed like a "bad fit."  I was. I was definitely not goofy enough for that particular group.

[jomarch]

Related (and perhaps obvious) -- to all you young & trendy folks: make sure anything you have up on MySpace and Facebook is, at the very least, harmless. This is now often the second step after Googling....

[dr_dre]

By the way, the easiest way to do this is to get a Blogger blog and post your vita as perhaps the only entry. Five minutes and you have a simple attractive site with the domain yourname.blogspot.com.

Okay, I just tried this. Someone has already set up a blog with my name to host photos of their baby. Stupid baby! I will add my middle initial.

[ptprof]

Related (and perhaps obvious) -- to all you young & trendy folks: make sure anything you have up on MySpace and Facebook is, at the very least, harmless. This is now often the second step after Googling....

I STRONGLY second this recommendation.  I search facebook and myspace on students who apply for our graduation program and while I expect a certain amount of "youthfullness", too much would probably not reflect well.

[dr_dre]

A question for larryc, if he sees this, or anyone else. Would a blogspot page come up in a Google search by your name? I recall friends working hard to get their blogs into the search engines and complaining about the process.

[larryc]

You know, I just googled my name and was surprised that my vita blog did not come up on the first several pages of results! But my faculty page at my department website was the first hit. So maybe a Blogspot site is not the way to go to influence your Google rankings after all.

[contemporary_]

Related (and perhaps obvious) -- to all you young & trendy folks: make sure anything you have up on MySpace and Facebook is, at the very least, harmless. This is now often the second step after Googling....

If you value your privacy, the smart thing to do is to create such pages using an email account created specifically for that purpose.  You might also choose a screenname that sounds/spells similar to your name, but isn't.  Nicknames are good too.  You might even use that email address for your CHE account.
Always set your pages to "friends only".

A question for larryc, if he sees this, or anyone else. Would a blogspot page come up in a Google search by your name? I recall friends working hard to get their blogs into the search engines and complaining about the process.

No, they don't.  Myspace, on the other hand, is scary.  (I use that space in a very limited and tactical manner) I chose a Sanskrit term to identify myself/title my page and now my myspace is the second entry for that phrase on google. 

If you know how to hack myspace for clean design, you can boost your visibility in an instant.  I use blogger to host images for that myspace page and they share the same name.  No comparison.

[dr_dre]

So I tried larryc's suggestion of blogspot and set one up this morning. At first, no luck on Google. But now, when I Google my name, the page comes up as the third hit. I have no idea why this works so well. I titled the page by my name, but didn't try any of the metatags stuff. So I think it really can work, although oddly, I guess, not for larryc? Thanks! I included my email, but not my address or phone, put a couple of links to various depts. where I studied and taught, professional organizations, and a book review I wrote on H-Net, and it looks conservative and appropriate. It would be cool to figure out a way to link to PDFs of a couple other things I've written, but I don't want to violate copyright or anything.

[scientiffikk]

I am going to google you, so try to control the results. A professional webpage is the best way to do this. It does not matter where it is hosted.

By the way, the easiest way to do this is to get a Blogger blog and post your vita as perhaps the only entry. Five minutes and you have a simple attractive site with the domain yourname.blogspot.com.

Thanks for the suggestion.  A few years ago I would come up early on the list of google hits.  There was a professional athlete with the same name that came up also.  Currently, this athlete is more famous and dominates the first dozen or so pages.

I'll check into the blogger idea.

[nocalprof]

I use a free tracker (www.statcounter.com) that will identify incoming hits to my website, sometimes pretty specifically, if they come from an ip address like "123.so-and-sos-lab.university.edu"

I figure if somebody's going to google me, I can at least know they got the stuff I want them to get.

[august_leo]

I made a website at myschool.edu. I know the school I got a job at was really impressed.

I also used statcounter.

I also ended friendships with lab undergrads to help my facebook page look less harmful. I also left some groups.

I kept some stuff about me "tennis champion" on my myschool.edu site so I sounded like a real person.

My website included all the stuff on my vita, my teaching and research statements, summaries of my research projects and links to all my publications and conference presentations.