Tips in Posting Your Resume in the Internet

Although some sites provide a way to block certain organizations from viewing your resume, these systems are not foolproof.There is no fail-safe way to protect the confidentiality of your employment record after you store it online. You can do things to protect yourself.

Posting on commercial websites.

Most commercial recruitment Web sites provide detailed instructions for submitting a resume. In most cases, the instructions are very similar to the procedures for responding to a job posting. The instructions on the Web site may direct you to cut and paste your resume into an online application form or to send your resume to a designated e-mail address.

After you complete the steps for posting a resume at the commercial Web site, wait 48 hours and then search the database to see if you can find your resume. If you locate your resume, review it carefully to see if any errors occurred in transmission or processing. If you need to make corrections, follow the procedures that most sites provide for doing so.

If you cannot locate your resume, contact the site using the e-mail address provided for assistance and questions. In your message, provide your name as it appears on your resume, the date it was sent to the site, and the name of your e-mail service provider. In most cases, Web site managers quickly resolve such situations.

Protecting your privacy.

Sending your resume over the Internet to an employer’s designated e-mail address is a personal and private communication. The employer is not likely to share that with anyone outside the organization. Storing your resume in an online resume database, on the other hand, puts that document and the information it contains into the public domain. Your resume is open and available to anyone with access to the database, and in the case of most commercial employment sites that is any individual or organization paying the access fee — including your current employer.

Although some sites provide a way to block certain organizations from viewing your resume, these systems are not foolproof. After your resume resides in such a database, there is a high probability that other sites may copy it and reproduce in their databases. As a result, there is no fail-safe way to protect the confidentiality of your employment record after you store it online. It is also difficult to prevent an outdated version of your resume from circulating on the Internet forever.

You can do two things to protect yourself: Always date your Internet resume so that employers can quickly determine if they are reviewing a current or older version of your employment information. Remove your home address and telephone number from your resume and replace it with an e-mailbox that you use only for employment matters. Check this box frequently, so that you can respond quickly to employer inquiries. An Internet resume is, without question, an unusual looking document. Despite its appearance, it is a useful document that can help you take advantage of the Internet’s resources for finding a new or better job and managing your career.