Should designers have an online identity?

Earlier today we had a debate in the office as to whether you would employ a (web) designer who didn’t have an online identity. The room was completely split on the matter, so I decided to take the debate to twitter and I recieved a few interesting responses.

Mark McCorkell, Rick Nunn, Inayaili de Leon and Aaron Bassett were all planted in the no camp. With recordstyle, Nick Edwards, Cole Henley, Simon Davies and Michael Byers all stating they would judge purely on portfolio pieces.

I don’t believe that there is a right or wrong answer to this question but here is where I stand.

If you are a web designer then making sure that you have your domain name is a must. Whilst I understand that if you have a fairly common name like John Smith then being able to purchase your domain name will prove to be quite tricky but you should still be able to get an alternative like John Smith Designs.

I also understand that some people simply do not have the time to commit to things such as a blog or portfolio but this isn’t really what I was getting at in my original question. If you have a domain there’s nothing stopping you putting up a lifestream, buisness card website or your CV. We all know that creating these ideas don’t take too much time, so why do people still decide against doing so?

Would you really want to hire somebody who hasn’t bothered to do a quick site for themselves? I’m not saying that you have to constantly up date your website but putting something up that I’ve suggested above at least shows that you have a bit of gumption.