How much effort do you go to in order to sanitise your online presence and reputation? We've all seen stories about how celebrities and politicians have been put under intense scrutiny when some activity or preference is considered salacious enough to hit the headlines. But what about the rest of us? What does our online profile mean for job prospects?

When you show up late, people usually assume you're disorganized, inconsiderate, and kind of flaky. Whatever the reason for your tardiness, these are the knee-jerk judgements that run through a person's mind when you're tardy. But look at the bright side: showing up early can be pretty powerful.

Old Faithful, the famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park, is a landmark that earns its name. According to business blog Entrepreneur, it can also teach us a thing or two about being a better employee with a simple tenet: be reliable first, impressive second.

Applying for a different position with your current employer may be one of the best ways to get a better job. That doesn't mean it will be a slam dunk though. Among other things, your reputation at work can work for or against you in the interview.

Finding a job is a challenge these days, but keeping one can be a challenge as well. What mistakes have you made, or seen others made, that hurt their reputation and made it more difficult to get another job?

Odds are someone is searching the web for you right now or has looked you up recently. Do you know what they learned? fo you control the pages and profiles they visited? If not, it's time to take your online reputation into your own hands instead of leaving it to Google. Here's how.

Your search results can paint a picture of who you are to prospective employers. If those results contain negative items, it can hurt your chances. Online reputation-correcting web app Brand Yourself crunched some numbers and found out which sites did the best job at improving how you appear in Google search results.

Whether you're looking to hide your personal activities from prospective employers or you just don't want last Friday's naked wood-chopping contest making the rounds on the internet, getting rid of embarrassing online photos, videos and messages can be tough. Here's how you can take action when you want to purge the internet of your shameful content and maintain your upstanding online reputation.

As we move more and more of our lives into the digital realms, the New York Times' Nick Bilton reminds us that "the internet never forgets". In an article about online reputation management, Bilton discusses firms that use a combination of SEO and content removal tactics to help customers reclaim their online identity.

You can establish and monitor your real name's Google presence, but you won't get complete control, especially when others with your name try the same tactic. Using a pseudonym/alias/author's name in conjunction with pages you control can be much more effective.

If you're not actively building your identity and establishing a presence online, you're letting search engines cobble together information, good or bad, and write your public story. You need to establish and maintain a healthy online identity.

Recently, a lot of folks have noticed their Twitter pages superseding their blogs in Google search results for their name. Tech journalist Marshall Kirkpatrick has an easy HTML workaround to keep Twitter from becoming your primary online identity.

These days performing a vanity search of your own name isn't just about vanity, it's good to know how future employers and dates that Google-stalk you will see you. WebMii can help you get a picture of your online image.

We've always emphasised the importance of monitoring your online presence, and now Google's jumping in with their own tips for managing your reputation through search results.

These days, if you want to know more about someone, the first thing most of us do is Google them. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that monitoring your online reputation is extraordinarily important.

With three real-world but anonymous examples of people who wanted identifiable and possibly perceived as negative information about themselves removed from web sites, ComputerWorld consulted experts but came up largely emptyhanded. In only one of the cases were the efforts successful, and the steps involved were complicated and time consuming. In the case of a journalist who shared a name with a reviewer on film review site Rotten Tomatoes who didn't want their name associated with the word "Rotten," more online activity and not less was recommended: Apparently, the journalist's best course of action would be to do what reputation mavens recommended in the first place: Create enough positive, search-engine-friendly content to push the "rotten + journalist's name" search result to Google's second page of results.

Check out our guide to using web tools to manage your online reputation. Have you ever tried to chase down a negative personal reference online, and how did it work out? Photo by Joe Goldberg Deleting your digital past — for good

Marketing expert Seth Godin says job hunters who are "remarkable, amazing, and spectacular" probably shouldn't have a resume. Bold statement! Godin writes: Having a resume begs for you to go into that big machine that looks for relevant keywords, and begs for you to get a job as a cog in a giant machine. Just more fodder for the corporate behemoth. That might be fine for average folks looking for an average job, but is that what you deserve?

Become known as an expert in any industry by utilising the tools available to you online. In a particular example illustrated by weblog Dosh Dosh, an art student want to market her skills and become known as an expert in her area of study. It's not that difficult to develop some sort of presence online nowadays, but to become an expert, you need to do a little more. Dosh Dosh writes: To achieve this goal, you need to develop visibility and industry connections. For people to talk about you, they first need to know that you exist. And so it is important to develop visibility in all the right places through an online persona. Building credibility requires establishing a home base online, participating in communities, initiating media outreach, and creating ventures to develop your net worth. Also, to see additional tips on how to manage your online reputation once your presence online is known. How to Use the Web to Build a Powerful Reputation in Any Industry