| How Did You Get This Number? Privacy, the Net, and Your Job
Search |
| By
Tracy A. Bumpus, CPRW, JCTC |
|
| The life of an email
is astounding. Get a good joke going and it can easily spread to millions of
people within 24 hours. Virus hacks take advantage of this phenomenon to use
email as a main carrier of their insidious work. Job seekers tend to forget
this phenomenon when they are going about an Internet-based job search and are
amazed when they get calls and email out of the blue. |
|
Rule #1 in any
Internet communications-NOTHING IS PRIVATE
That said, what can you
do to preserve your privacy? There are several things that can be done to keep
your personal information as private as possible without sabotaging the effects
of your job search efforts. |
|
| Make your
résumé confidential-we do not recommend that you NOT include your
name, but you can keep your other contact information fairly private. Here's
how: |
|
1. Set up a
separate voice mail and email account just for the purposes of your job search.
A great, free way to do this is to use Onebox.com (www.onebox.com). Set up a voice mail stop and
an email account specifically for your job search. Use this phone number and
email on your résumé and in all job search activities. When the
job search is over and you are happily ensconced in your new job, cancel the
account. Remember to check your voice mail on a daily, if not more frequent,
basis so you will not miss opportunities.
2. Do NOT include your
street address on your documents.
Employers do not need your street
address during the interview process except to send a
"thank-you-we-have-your-résumé-on-file" postcard (and most don't
even bother to do that anymore). DO include the city and state in which you
live. Recruiters need to know where you are so they can take time zones into
consideration when attempting to reach you and in consideration for a
relocation. Eliminating your street address also protects your family. In
today's crazy world, you never know who will be a stalker. If you feel strongly
that you need a mailing address on the résumé, get a Post Office
box or a mailbox at the local MailBoxes, Etc. or similar establishment.
|
|
| By keeping your home
phone number, your home address, and your permanent email address OFF your
résumé, you are doing the most you can to preserve your privacy.
Whenever you email your résumé to a person, whether it is a
recruiter, an employer, a friend, or whoever-you are giving up some of your
privacy. There is no guarantee that your résumé will stop at the
addressee's computer. |
|
Privacy on job
boards
If you list your résumé in one database on the
Internet, other job boards WILL download it to their databases as a common
practice. Your résumé will be open fodder to millions by listing
it on the Internet. This can be a good thing-it's networking to the power of
10. It can also be a pain in the neck when you continue to receive calls 8
months after finding a new job. Using a temporary voicemail and email will help
alleviate this problem. |
|
| Be sure to cancel or
delete your résumé from the job boards to which you posted when
you accept a new offer. Do not trust the job boards to do it for
you. |
|
Keeping your
current employer from knowing your intentions
What can you do to
keep your current employer from finding your résumé on the
Internet? Not a great deal. You can eliminate the name of your current employer
from your résumé to keep your employer from turning your
résumé up on a keyword search using the company name. For
example, if you work for IBM, replace the name of the company with something
like "global leader in information technology products and services based in
Research Triangle Park". Unfortunately, this also eliminates recruiters from
competing companies who are searching for the cream of the crop from their
competitors' ranks (headhunting). |
|
| Instead, take the
risk and keep the name of your current employer in there. If someone from HR
turns up at your desk and asks what your intentions are, you can always say you
were just fishing to see what would happen. |
|
| In summary, have a
preventive mindset toward protecting your privacy when going about your job
search. Keep your home contact info and your office contact info out of the
game altogether by using a separate contact method that is specifically for the
job search. Know the risks when you upload your résumé to the job
boards and be prepared for the reality of spam, calls, and junk mail that will
result. Be pleasantly surprised if you get an inquiring call from an employer
rather than angry that your résumé was forwarded by someone you
don't know. Take advantage of the great power of networking that the Internet
offers and be ready to handle the volume of response. The Internet is a
powerful means of communication and can be a great way to network into a new
job if you handle it correctly! |
| ### |
| Tracy Bumpus, CPRW, JCTC is
Executive Director of RezAMAZE.com, a career services firm that specializes in
working with professionals in the high tech and engineering industries. Mrs.
Bumpus has been published in six national best-selling job search books and has
written for the National Business Employment Weekly and Contract Professional.
Mrs. Bumpus can be contacted through her web site at
http://www.rezamaze.com or via email at
tbumpus@rezamaze.com. |
|
