Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Residue Resumes Online

About six years ago I submitted my resume on job sites like Monster and careerbuilder as part of research for a book I was writing. I needed to understand how each of the sites worked so I could explain it to my readers.

To this day, I get emails from employers who say my resume “seems to be a good fit” for job openings they’re trying to fill. Come on, the resume’s six years old! Don’t they (or their computers) read the dates on my resume post?

More important is the fact that my resume, with personal info like my name, address, and phone number, is still floating around in cyberspace. That’s my mistake! I should have deleted my resume from the account I had with the resume sites but I was too lazy.

Don’t make the same mistake with your job hunt. Aside from getting unwanted email, you could have another big problem on your hands: After you get your next job, your new boss might discover your resume online and mistakenly assume that you’re back on the job hunt. Not good!

So don’t be lazy like me. Clean up after your online job search by removing your resume from online databases. You can always put a fresh one up when you launch your next job campaign.

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