As many of you may (or may not) know, I have been unemployed for the last 10 months. It’s been an amazing journey, full of heartache, joy, sadness, adventure…very Disney.

About 2 months ago, I became the front-runner in a GREAT job opportunity. All the meetings and interviews went well, my potential boss and I related well, his wife even liked me. Everything was humming right along….

And then I got an email from my potential new boss…

He was asking about something on my web site that he had seen. It wasn’t damaging, but it raised a red flag, or two, on his end. It wasn’t anything bad, illegal, un-scriptural, or NSFW, but it was a bit troubling for my possible new boss.

And at that moment, the reality of my social network landed on my shoulders.

I immediately started to process through all of my blog posts, Twitter Tweets, and Tumblr posts. What images did I house on TwitPic or videos on 12Seconds.tv?

This was a sobering reminder of a few words of caution:

1. NEVER post anything that would inhibit your potential in the job market.

2. NEVER post anything that might get you fired or arrested.

3. REMEMBER: The Internet is like an elephant, it NEVER forgets, once it’s on the web, it on the web for good.

4. DON’T post anything in anger.

5. DON’T drunk Twitter…or blog, or vlog.

6. Your reputation is the one of the few things that you can control.

Always take the high road, AKA “Names SHOULD be changed to protect the innocent.” If you have to write it to get it off your chest, DO NOT use real names.