Copyright 1999 Times Publishing Company
St.
Petersburg Times
View Related Topics
February 08, 1999, Monday, 0 South Pinellas
Edition
SECTION: BUSINESS; TECH TIMES; Pg. 15
LENGTH: 356 words
HEADLINE: Be
cautious when posting a resume
BYLINE: DAVE GUSSOW
BODY:
Online job hunters have some decisions
to make: Should you post your resume at a specific site? Should you submit your
resume to a service and have it distribute it for you? Should you worry about
your privacy once you send your resume into cyberspace?
Experts say it
is best to start cautiously.
Dr. Randall S. Hansen, associate professor
of marketing at Stetson University in DeLand, started a site
(www.stetson.edu/rhansen/careers.html) to provide job-hunting information and
tips and to promote career-related books he has written, but it has mushroomed
into hundreds of pages and links. He suggests that job-seekers:
+Start
with some of the major job sites, such as CareerMosaic or Monster.com, that have
a lot of listings. +Find sites that are specific to the industry you are
interested in.
+Go to specific companies and check out the career
portion of their sites.
+If you don't want your current boss to see your
resume online, make sure to check the site's confidentiality protections. "If
you're at a company and you're job-hunting," he said, "you have to be
discreet off the Net and you have to be discreet on the Net."
Gerry
Crispin, co-author of Career Xroads, says consumers should stick to free sites.
"They should really question what they're getting if someone says, "I'm
going to do something for you but you're going to have to pay
me,' " Crispin said.
In addition, consumers need to be aware
of their privacy when posting a resume with personal
information online. Someone could use the information
to create a fake identity.
"We don't have too many examples of problems
yet, but they're going to crop up," Crispin said.
Services
promising to post resumes in multiple data bases should be avoided, too. "Why in
God's name do you want your name in 35 data bases you have no knowledge
about?" he said.
"Consumers should really think about where they
place this core of information about themselves and their life and their goals.
It should be only in data bases that guarantee some degree of confidentiality
and privacy and allow the job-seeker to have some control of who sees what."
LOAD-DATE: February 9, 1999
