Unvarnished: Personal and professional reviews

On the new site Unvarnished, your personal and professional reputation is up for review. Unvarnished is a website currently in beta testing that will let anybody review you. While this could be an incredibly useful tool, within the end Unvarnished could end up more of a headache than it’s worth. Denying you the best personal loan rates will, at least, hopefully not become a way that Unvarnished gets used.

Using Unvarnished as reputation management

Unvarnished is a website that invites you and others to post your “unvarnished” reviews of people. The claim of Unvarnished is that it will help you “manage your career growth”. Anybody can post a review of anyone else. User’s identities are verified using Facebook profiles. When the link to Facebook seems more legitimate, but faking out a payday loan company is harder than faking out Facebook.

Unvarnished isn’t without problems

The problem with Unvarnished will most likely be something comparable to other review websites. A review website could be incredibly helpful in making decisions. However, there are always two sides to every story. Unvarnished claims to have a “community” system that will help keep bad reviews in check. The simple reality of Unvarnished is that unhappy people are more likely to speak out than unhappy people. This means that Unvarnished could present an unvarnished – if very skewed – view of you.

Should your profile go Unvarnished?

Yes, reviews on Unvarnished might be very skewed. And yes, Unvarnished could supply a real pain some days. Getting an Unvarnished account would still be a good move for most professionals. It is very important know what other people have to say about you. Unvarnished is one more destination to keep an eye out for feedback, and respond if you have to. Most especially in a difficult job market, keeping a close eye on your reputation on places like Unvarnished is important.