Brilliant Job Search

Job search tips from the folks who fill the jobs

Don't Go Commando

You should do NOTHING on the web without your "thinking cap" on. thinking  cap

Why? Because you never know where the contents of your post (be it a resume, a blog entry, or response to a comment on a community bulletin board) will end up,  and/or how they might be used.

Point and case? Last August hackers broke into the job recruitment Web site Monster and stole personal data on 1.3 million users. And if unauthorized hackers did this on a site which the public considers to be extremely secure, imagine what a few devious people who have permission might do.

If you're employed, for example, one of your boss' buddy-recruiters could find your resume on the net give him a heads-up that you're looking for a job.

If you have several resume versions, you could look desperate, and even pathological, to a skilled resume-locator and screener who finds both v1 and v2.

Consider "JP" who has both managerial and non-managerial resumes posted on the web. He told a potential employer that he wanted to be an "individual contributor" and that he was no longer "interested in management".

Guess what the hiring-manager found on the web when he went to look for JP's phone number so he could call and offer him a job? you got it, the wrong version of his resume. This version made everything JP said on the interview seem insincere.

"I need an honest, straight-shooter," the employer told me, "I don't have time to play games, or to guess whether my employee is being sincere. "

Needless to say, JP didn't get the job. And it's not because he wasn't qualified; it's because he  had no ability to control what people saw or how they might interpret it.

Lessons learned:

  • Don't post your resume anywhere. E-mail it instead. That way you'll know exactly which version a potential employer has access to.
  • If you must post your resume, post only one version.
  • Don't use an "Objective" or "Career Goal" statement in your resume; let the employer bring up the topic in the actual interview.
  • Leave resume minutia out, otherwise you risk letting the big things to get lost in the clutter!

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