For Most Job Seekers, Personal Websites Are a Waste of Time

There are ideas that, on the surface, seem totally reasonable but completely fall to pieces once you think about them for more than five seconds. Things like extended warranties, variable annuities, and tapas. Add to this list personal websites: those dinky, résumé-displaying URLs you ostensibly maintain to enhance your “brand.”

A survey of 3,000 people, paid for by Workfolio, a personal-website services company, concluded that while 7 percent of respondents have a personal website, 80 percent want one. According to a blog post by Workfolio President Charles Pooley—on his own website, of course—such a Web presence increases your visibility through search engines, raises your profile, and “lets your personality shine.” In March, Career Thought Leaders, a think tank in Coleman Falls, Va., urged workers to “establish a more robust digital identity.” Employers, it wrote, are increasingly “identifying prospective employees through their online presence. Personal websites, social media presence  …  and a well-defined personal brand will be the requirements for gaining the attention of prospective employers.” And a Workfolio-funded study in April suggested that 56 percent of managers count personal websites as a plus when vetting job candidates.