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Career Job Boards and What Every Job Seeker Should Know

Career Job Boards and What Every Job Seeker Should Know

Career Job Boards and What Every Job Seeker Should Know

After you post your resume, it is usually out of your control. Generally, job sites do not have the ability to track or control how a recruiter or employer uses your resume after it has been downloaded. Most sites are pretty good about watching for problems.

These practices are frowned upon and enforced by the terms of use agreements with employers and recruiters. But keep in mind there are risks involved in posting a resume in a database.

Watch out for job scams
The job offer you see might not be for a real job. After you post your resume, you may be contacted by someone trying to scam you with a fake job offer. This is becoming a very serious problem in online job searching. Here are some red flags that should alert you to these scams.

Have you been asked for your social security number? Have you been asked to scan your ID or driver’s license and send it in? Have you been asked to do a money transfer as part of your duties? Have you been asked to respond to e-mails that describe high-paying jobs that require you to sign up for an eBay, PayPal or Western Union account, and to transfer monies in any one of these modes?

If you answered yes to any one of these, then this is likely a scam. It is best to report them to the job board where it was posted.

General job descriptions usually don’t offer much of an opportunity

After posting your resume, you should start getting responses. Be wise and selective about offers, because not all offers are worth your time.

If you get an e-mail that asks you to send a resume to a new email address or to “update” your resume on a new job site, think twice, especially when you do not see a credible job being offered with a verifiable company. Some companies get you to send a new resume just so they can put it in their resume database.

Resume posting options

You have a few options when you post your resume. You can do an anonymous posting, which lets you hide your contact information or e-mail address when you post a resume. This resume posting option allows you to control who contacts you.

You can also get selective and only post information about your background that specific employers are looking for. Unfortunately, few job seekers take advantage of this option. You can also post your resume online for the world to see.

This method is normally used by job seekers who are not working and would like to explore opportunities by a variety of companies.

Some resume job boards are better than others
You’ll find a variety of job boards and resume databases online, and some only serve specific industries or occupations. Before you post your resume to any database, read the site’s privacy policy. This will tell you if your information is being protected and how your information is being used.

Some of the better job boards will state that they do not sell your private information to marketing companies. If you post to boards that sell your information to marketing companies, you will probably start getting bombarded with spam soon after.

If the website does not have a privacy policy posted, you should be especially cautious about posting a resume to that website.

How frequently should you check the website where you have your resume posted?
You should pay attention to how long a resume website says it will keep or store your resume. Many job seekers overlook this.

Some sites state their retention time in their privacy policy, usually between one and six months, after which the site will delete your resume.

Without specific written statements about how long your resume may be kept, your resume can be searched for years. Most job seekers do not want resumes circulating after they have secured a job, so check to make sure there is a limited posting time before you post a resume.

If you are not sure about how long it will stay on the website, contact them to ask. You should have the option to delete or change anything on your online profile at any time.

Keep good records of your job search
Make sure you keep a record of where you have posted your resume online. Include in that record all e-mail correspondence and any online profiles you compiled.

You should print out a copy of the posted job advertisement, save a snapshot, or cut and paste to a Word document so you can refer to it if you are called for a phone or in-person interview. Don’t be in a hurry to delete old correspondence from your record.

Some employers keep resumes on file for a period of six to 12 months in case new positions come up.

Different e-mail addresses for website posting advertisements
There are a few good reasons why you should have different e-mail addresses. You should set up an address for responding to “blind” career opportunities, or those from companies that post ads without their company information.

In essence, you are doing the same thing. Using an e-mail address that you can cancel anytime is a good way to keep your information private. Expect to be inundated with spam, so don’t give out your name, phone number, or home address when setting up these e-mail accounts.

Two important things to omit when applying online
You may end up going to quite a few career websites, and you will probably create resume profiles that can be searched by recruiting firms and employers directly. Never volunteer your social security number or references on any websites. These can be furnished at a later phase of the interview process.

For other job related statistics and relevant data, you can visit the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website at www.bls.com

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Posting Your Resume Online: Risks vs. Rewards

Posting Your Resume Online: Risks vs. Rewards

Posting Your Resume Online: Risks vs. Rewards

You can saturate the internet with your resume thanks to all these posting sites, but do you really want to? There are three issues to consider when posting your resume online.

1. Placement: Where should you post it?

2. Privacy: How public do you want it to be?

3. Length of time: How long will it be posted?

You’re probably thinking, “The more exposure I get, the better,” right? Not necessarily. Recruiters get tired of coming across the same resumes in every database they search. If you get labeled a “resume spammer”, you won’t be considered for job openings they are working to fill. Also, the farther your resume spreads, the less control you have over it and the more likely it is to be discovered by someone you had hoped wouldn’t see it, like your current employer. And yes, people do get fired because of this.

Some of these problems can be avoided by limiting where you post your resume and by limiting the amount of information in your posted resume. It is possible for your resume to be visible but private online, but how visible you want it to be is up to you.

A few safety items of importance that you should consider when posting to a career website, or distributing your resume to thousands of recruiters, are:

1.) Read privacy policies – These usually tell you how your information is collected and handled. Some sites sell your information to third parties, while others are pretty good about keeping your information private. There are even some job boards that don’t have privacy policies. I would be extra cautious, and look to find and read through their privacy policy to see if your personal information will be shared. I’ve heard cases where applicants started getting spam shortly after posting their resumes on job boards.

2.) Limit the amount of information you offer on these websites – Many job seekers fill out a form with their contact information, then cut and paste the whole resume into the box, forgetting they still have their contact information in the body of the resume. It’s up to you how much of this information you want to share.

3.) Limit where you post your resume – Post your resume only on a few of the more popular sites. This gives you maximum exposure for the geography, industry or type of company you selected.

4.) Don’t let your resume sit and get stale – Renew your profile information every couple weeks so it’s active and updated. Recruiters will look to see how long your resume has been sitting. But don’t keep refreshing your resume on the same sites if you’re not getting any job leads. If you are not getting any responses in a month or more, it’s likely that the job or industry you are posting for is in short demand, and you may need to post your resume on an industry specific job board. Or perhaps this particular site is not effective for your search and you need to try another site.

5.) Here is a list of job sites you could try depending on your occupation, industry and role.

www.Indeed.com

www.Careerbuilder.com

www.Glassdoor.com

www.Dice.com

www.Simplyhired.com

www.Monster.com

www.Theladders.com

www.Beyond.com

www.Salary.com

www.Ziprecruiter.com

6.) Modify the employment and contact information you put on your resume – If you have to create an e-mail address dedicated to your job search, check it constantly for responses. Try not to get too fancy with your job-hunt e-mail address. Keep it simple and not overly complex, and remember this is a representation of you. I’ve seen e-mail addresses that are surprisingly crude and unprofessional. Here are some acceptable, yet creative, examples: technologyguru@aol.com, nurse911@hotmail.com.

7.) Know who is running the website – Even if a website looks professional and legitimate, I would still look into who is running it or owns it. It could be a staffing or consulting company looking to build a candidate pool for their openings. Most recognized boards are legitimate, and are transparent with candidates about the ownership and structure of the business. The legitimate sites will likely have a physical address along with names of officers or executives who run the company.

8.) Limit the information you provide – If you’re new to the site and have never posted your resume there, limit the amount of information you provide, such as schools attended, name, email, etc. There’s a good chance you might get some spam, so pick an email you don’t use much, but one you can check to see if there are any new job opportunities that come from this job board. Note that in the registration process you’ll likely be asked if you want to be added to an email list of new job opportunities that get posted on a daily or weekly basis.

9.) Decide if you want your resume to be viewed by the general public – While in the registration process, make sure to check off the appropriate boxes if you want your resume accessible to recruiters and employers. This will probably depend on whether you are working and want access to more opportunities or just passively looking to see if there’s something out there that may be of interest to you. Here’s another article to consider when posting to job boards or social media.

10.) Delete your profile when your job search has ended – Leaving your resume on these sites long after you find a job can create problems if your current employer comes across your resume. Delete the profile as soon as you accept a position.

For other job related statistics and relevant data, you can visit the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website at www.bls.com