Online reputation management is becoming important to the job search process of recent college graduates. In fact, it's becoming so important that Syracuse University is giving this year's graduates a six-month subscription to an online reputation management service.

Syracuse University has realized your personal brand — your personal online reputation — can affect how you are seen by employers. They want their graduates to practice good online reputation management, beyond the typical "don't post nude or drunken photos of yourself on Facebook" advice that is normally given to college students.

HR professionals consider online reputation management during the hiring process. How important is online reputation management? A recent study of HR professionals and hiring managers showed that 70% of human resources professionals and hiring managers have rejected a candidate based on negative information they found online. That means what you put on Facebook, your blog posts, and even your tweets all play a part in your online reputation management. Post inappropriate photos and messages, and it can hurt you.

Similarly, 85% of those same people said positive online reputation management by the candidates influenced their hiring decision "to some extent," while nearly half of them said that a strong online reputation influenced their decision "to a great extent." Think of it this way: if you and another person are competing for the same job, the hiring manager is going to make a decision based on how well either of you present yourself online.

In other words, people who practice positive online reputation management can boost their chances in finding a job. If you want to get your dream job, make sure your personal online brand is clean, and supports what you have said about yourself in your resume.

Monitor your online reputation. In some cases, your online reputation management may be a matter of reverse search engine optimization — pushing down negative results that already exist on the different social networks.

If you made a couple of bad decisions, that does not mean you've doomed yourself to a life of underemployment because you posted several. . . Spring Break photos on Facebook. By deleting the photos, and then posting a lot of positive content in blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, you can reverse SEO your negative information off the front page.

Another tip is to use your full name, including middle name, on your resume so when a hiring manager searches for you, that is the name that will pop up in the search results. If you create a positive online reputation for your full name while working to push down your negative results for your shortened name, you can help minimize the effect of posting negative information. Check out some of our other posts on reverse SEO for other ideas.

You can find free online reputation management graders that will check your top 10 search engine results, and give you a grade based on the number of results that are about you.

But another step of your online reputation management should be to check out your own Google rankings. Search for your own name — use your full name as well as your shortened name — and see what pops up on the second, third, and fourth page.

If you have done a good job at online reputation management, your name and past glory will fill up the pages. If you have not, you will either find all the embarrassing stuff you hoped no one would ever see, or your name will not show up at all.

If you want to have a positive influence on your job search, be sure to practice positive online reputation management, and make sure you are putting the best possible information out there for hiring managers to find.