Mercyhurst has recently begun using a service known as Merit Pages, and many students may have recently received an email asking them to “claim” their page.

The service is a way of automatically notifying students of any awards which they may receive over the course of time, as well as notifying newspapers in the students’ hometown (universities such as the University of Lafayette use this feature). Some of the advantages according to Alison Seib, a Marketing Coordinator for Mercyhurst, include: “Visibility. Bragging rights. Proof of experience.”

Citing statistics which state that “75 percent of employers are estimated to [perform online searches on potential employees]”, Ms. Seib says that the pages are a great help to students seeking to ensure a positive first experience for any employers who are searching for them online.

The Merit Pages website makes the point that a student’s page is like “an automatically updating resume”. It lists all the positive features of a student without he/she having to try and figure out how to describe it. The employer sees a custom badge given to the student by the school.

The badges don’t just list awards, but they also list work experiences (including internships), as well as activities and clubs in which the student participates over the course of their time at the college.

The idea of having a page which keeps track of you automatically, updating whenever anything significant happens in your life, may not sound too attractive to some of Mercyhurst’s students. So, if you are a little fearing of “Big Brother” or the NSA tracking everything you do, you can opt out of the program by emailing Alison Seib (aseib@mercyhurst.edu) and requesting that your page be taken down.

However, if this writer may give one final point, the first impression for an employer is one of the most important, if not the most important a student can make. Anything can be helpful to those students looking for jobs after graduation. So, if you’ve got a page which says nothing but good things about you, how can this ever be anything but helpful to you? Food for thought.