Binaya Ghimire

IN the last couple of years, we have seen a lot of good changes in Nepal, especially in the IT sector. The days when we had to queue in the newspaper stand to buy Gorkhapatra to check our SLC results are gone. Today, everything is available in the internet, whether we want to check our exam results, see notices of government vacancies or even apply for the government jobs.
A lot of us are using internet and we have online presence in some ways. If not our own websites and blogs, we are at least using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. The social sites help us build our online portfolio, however, most of us are using social sites just for personal communication. Do you realize you can create a page on Facebook that you can use as a notice board to share your portfolio, work experience, achievements?
Do you realise you can use LinkedIn to create your online resume that you can share with your potential employer? You can use LinkedIn not only to build your online resume, but also as a job portal site. A lot of companies and businesses post jobs on LinkedIn.
You use internet to do a lot fun thing (using social media, for instance) as well as serious things (e.g. searching information). However, have you ever considered about the search engine value of your own name? In other words, do you realise people might also be Googling your name? If you do not have online presence, how do you expect people to find you on Google, Yahoo, or Bing?
Sometime back I read an article on American Newspaper International Herald Tribune, where the writer claimed that companies are looking into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts of people they are trying to hire. Soon, this might also be a reality in our country.
Just using a lot of social sites might not guarantee your online presence or search engine value because you share your name with hundreds of thousands people. Therefore, you will also have to consider using other online platforms to improve your online visibility. One of the best ways to increase your online presence and build your online resume is by having your own website.
However, in order to build your website, you need to spend money on registering a domain, buying hosting plan, and even might have to pay for the website designer. If you want to build your website, yet do not want to spend money, you can find good alternatives. For example you can use free blogging sites like Blogspot, Wordpress, Weebly, Wix, etc. to build your online resume and share your experiences and achievements.
Another option to increase your online visibility is by creating an account on a site called about.me. The site allows you to build your one page website that you can use as your online resume. Good thing about this website is it has better ranking on Google than other free sites like blogspot, wordpress, or even social sites. Better ranking means, your about.me page will appear higher on Google compared to your pages on social sites of free blogging sites.