As you all know, I'm working on finding a job in Toronto.

I'm extremely selective, but even so, I've sent out a good number of copies of my resume.  There are some interesting places here, and people who could use my talents.  And in one cover letter, I encouraged the hiring manager to Google me.  (I almost always address letters, lacking a name, to Hiring Manager.  At Berkman, whenever someone sent me an item addressed to "sir" or "Mr. Koslow," I took off a point for thoughtlessness - the incredibly dumb assumption that I must be a man.)

I get a lot of hits on Google.  I appear to be the only person with my name doing anything online.  And, as you all know, I've done a crapload online. 

Not every hit is flattering, and not every hit speaks the truth.  One links to an article written by a guy I thought was just a guy, who turned out to be a journalist, and quoted me in a way I didn't like.  Many hits talk about the engagement or wedding - that will tell someone why I came to Canada, at least, and that it's a good bet that I'll stick around.

A huge number, though, relate to work - mainly Berkman work of course, but I did spend nearly four years there.  There are many lovely thank-yous, there are announcements, there are projects on which I toiled.  There's my own "people page," which I edited just before I left in August.

I sometimes wish Google went in chronological order.  One could start in 1999, where the first web references to me might appear, and watch me grow from someone who used email in college but didn't really know what the web could do (I didn't even realize I was a somewhat early adopter), beginning to work at a dot-com, to a person who now looks at a web page, knows how it works, and probably knows someone who helped build it or wrote what's on it.

When employers Google, what do they read? 

When I Googled potential employees, I tried to see whether they had blogs - blogs were good for my purposes, it meant they liked the Web, liked to write.  I looked for anyone mentioning their past work.  I looked for personality.

OK.  I'm feeling lucky.