Dear Matt: I want to post my résumé online for recruiters to contact me. What are the advantages of posting a résumé online for recruiters everywhere to see and what are the disadvantages?
Matt: The good: You can reach a large audience of recruiters, increasing your chances of getting contacted for a job opportunity you may have never heard about by posting your résumé online. You can also easily submit your résumé to many employers because it is already stored and ready to go.
The bad: You open yourself up to unnecessary spam, or worse yet, identity theft. I have a résumé posted on a job board, and just got an e-mail saying my "impressive background in the sales field recently came to the attention" of a recruiter. The e-mail went on to say I might be a perfect match for an outbound telemarketing sales assistant position. Two things - I've never worked in sales, and I have no background that matches that of a telemarketer. This is the spam I was talking about.
Steven Rothberg, president and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, said his company became so concerned about the threat of identity theft from hackers and annoying phone calls from those who search résumé banks to find new customers that his company no longer allows employers or anyone else to search its résumé bank (users can still post their résumés and submit them to employers).
If you do decide to post your résumé online, do so anonymously, says Katie Carty Tierney, the talent acquisition manager for nGenera, a software company specializing in on-demand business innovation. Instead of using your current company name, for example, use a descriptor, such as "Large Pharmaceutical Firm" or "Large National Bank" and only include your initials instead of full name. If you're really a good fit for the job, the recruiters will seek you out, even if your résumé is anonymous, she says. Many job boards offer tools that enable job seekers to remain anonymous.
Finally, remember posting your résumé on a job board doesn't guarantee success - or mean it's time to stop looking for a job through other methods. Carty Tierney says 70 percent of her firm's hires this year were from referrals, while only 7.5 percent came from traditional job boards.
"We've had much better long-term success, in general, with employees we've hired through networking or referrals," says Carty Tierney.
Matt Krumrie is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights, and has nine years of experience reporting on the employment industry. This column will answer readers' questions. E-mail questions or subject ideas to askmatt@startribune.com.
