What a Search Firm Sees When It Googles You

When Boardroom CXO looks up a senior candidate, we check three things, in this order: whether the titles, dates and companies on their LinkedIn match their CV, what comes up when we Google their name, and what they post and comment on LinkedIn.

We run executive search for retail, jewellery and D2C brands in India and the UAE, so looking leaders up is part of how we run a search. Through Boardroom Moves we also record senior leadership moves in India every week. This guide explains each of the three checks, and what you can do about each one before anyone searches for you.

We are not the only ones who look. Board members, investors and future employers search a leader's name too, and they see much the same page we do.

Check 1: does your LinkedIn match your CV?

The first thing we check is whether the titles, dates and companies on your LinkedIn profile match the CV you sent. Both should tell the same story, line by line.

We look at three things on each line: the title, the start and end dates, and the company name. A CV is written for one application. A LinkedIn profile may have been written years earlier and updated in a hurry. Over time the two can drift apart. A promotion shows on one and not the other. A job that ended in March says March on the CV and June on LinkedIn. A company that was renamed appears under two different names.

Each gap is a question you would rather answer before anyone asks it. What you can do:

• Put your CV next to the Experience section of your LinkedIn profile and check every title, date and company name.
• Where they differ, decide which version is right and fix the other one. LinkedIn lets you edit or remove any position from the Experience section.
• If you held two roles at one company, list both, each with its own dates, in both places.
• If a company changed its name, use the same name on the CV and on LinkedIn.
• Update your headline to your current title. LinkedIn says anyone who views your profile sees your edits as soon as you save them.

One practical point: if you are only correcting old dates, look at the "Share profile updates" setting under Visibility in LinkedIn's Settings first. When notifications are on, your network may be told about changes to your profile, and a date fix is not news.

Check 2: what comes up when we Google your name?

Next we search your name on Google, then your name with your company name, and read what comes up. Anyone who searches for you sees much the same page.

For a senior leader, the useful results are pages that say who you are now: your LinkedIn profile, the company's leadership page, an announcement of your appointment, an interview or an article about your role. When you search yourself, the weak spots are easy to see:

• Nothing about your current role, only pages about a job you left years ago.
• Someone with the same name filling the first page, so a reader cannot tell which person is you.
• An out of date profile on a site you no longer use.
• Your phone number or home address on a directory site.

To see what others see, search in a private browser window, signed out of Google. Search your name alone, then your name with your current company. Then:

• Make sure at least one page on a website Google indexes is about your current role. The company's leadership or news page is a good place. If it does not exist, ask for one.
• Close or update old profiles you no longer use.
• If your contact details show up, Google's "Results about you" tool lets you find results with your phone number, home address or email and ask for them to be removed from Google Search, in the markets where it is available. Google notes that the information still exists on the source website, so you would also need to ask that site's owner to take it down.

A new role is a good moment to make sure that page exists. Boardroom Moves offers Featured placement for this. With the Plus option, the move gets a dedicated LinkedIn post on the Boardroom CXO page and an article on boardroomcxo.com written to rank for the leader's name. The leader sees the draft first and can ask for changes. If we hear nothing within 48 hours, it goes live as drafted. You can tell us about your move here. If the move has not been announced yet, start with how to announce a new CXO appointment in India.

Check 3: what do you post and comment on LinkedIn?

The third check is what you post and comment on LinkedIn: the tone you write in and the topics you choose. Both are public.

Comments matter here as well as posts. A reply under someone else's post is public too. For a senior leader, the questions are simple. Does the tone sound like someone you would put in front of a board, a team or a customer? Are the topics ones you are happy to be linked with? Is there anything about a former employer that you would not say in an interview?

What you can do:

• Read back through your own posts and comments from the past year as if you were a stranger deciding whether to hire you.
• Edit or delete anything you would not say in a board meeting.
• Post now and then about your actual work: a launch, a team you built, a lesson from your sector. A few real posts about your field give a reader something to go on.
• Keep disagreements polite. A sharp reply can still be read long after the thread is forgotten.

How to run the same three checks on yourself

Run all three checks on yourself in one sitting: compare LinkedIn with your CV, Google your name in a private window, then read your recent posts and comments.

1. Open your CV and your LinkedIn Experience section side by side. Fix every title, date and company name that does not match.
2. Search your name, and your name with your current company, signed out of Google. Note whether any page on the first screen is about your current role.
3. Scroll through your LinkedIn posts and comments. Read them for tone and topics, not for likes.

Do it before you start looking for a new role, and again after any move, once the new title is public.

If you are hiring a senior leader

If you are a founder or HR head hiring at the top, these three checks are how Boardroom CXO looks a senior candidate up online during a search.

We run executive search for retail, jewellery and D2C brands in India and the UAE. To talk about a role you need to fill, schedule a call. To see which leaders moved recently, browse Boardroom Moves.