Resume Tips and Tricks, Part 3
Protect your privacy.
The Internet is wide open and mostly unregulated. Be wary of giving out too much personal information in your online resume or job-bank registration forms, such as your street address, and home and work phone numbers. Natch, job banks need at least your name and email address, so employers and recruiters may contact you. But that's really all they need to start.
Granted, the more ways you give an interested employer to reach you, the better. But that's up to you, not the job banks. Many insist on being too nosey, and won't let you post your resume unless you comply. Forced compliance might mean that they have ulterior motives, such as telemarketing and junk mailings.
Job banks might also redistribute your online resume to job newsgroups, to give you maximum exposure. That's nice, but it also gives the job banks maximum exposure. Some do so without regard for your privacy and worse, without your permission. While they are useful in your job search, newsgroups are particularly bad when it comes to privacy. Opportunists and con artists use them to capture your personal info, for whatever tricks they have up their sleeves.
There are plenty of job banks from which to choose, so you don't need to settle for those that insist on too much personal information up front, and indiscriminately blast it all over the Net to boot. Look for job banks that have features to protect your privacy. Also look for links to their privacy policies. If there is no privacy policy or you don't like it, skip that job bank. Even if they have favorable policies, still be wary of job banks that insist on too much personal info just to let you in the door. A few have been known to violate their own privacy policies, unintentionally or not. All of this goes for resume banks and "blasting" services, too. But if you send your resume directly to hiring employers, that's a different matter. It's a good idea to give them multiple ways to reach you.
In all cases, consider using a temporary, anonymous email address. In addition to further protecting your privacy, it has other benefits.
- It helps you organize your job search, by keeping all job-related email in one place. Check this account daily.
- It keeps persistent recruiters, opportunists and spammers from cluttering your main email account.
- Once you find a job, you can pull the plug on your temporary account, so you don't keep receiving email you don't want.
You might be able to get a second, free email account through your Internet provider. To find more, search the Web for the keywords free email account. But be aware that many of these give you a "free" email account, so they can spam you. (Nothing is truly free.) At least it's only temporary. Still, be sure to read their privacy polices and skip them if they're too nosey.
Protect the privacy of your references.
Don't post their personal information on the Internet, or you may not have them as references for long! Instead, simply type References available upon request at the bottom of your resume or don't say anything about it. If employers want your references, you can bet that they'll ask for them whether or not you offer. Employers typically don't want your references until you fill out job applications.
Do employers really check references? Find out and more, in "Reference Checks" and "Background Check."
Don't include personal details in your U.S. resume.
In the U.S., it is not necessary to include personal details such as race, marital status, number of children and age. In fact, it is illegal for U.S. employers to ask about such. There may be exceptions for Affirmative Action programs and jobs that require security clearances, but don't volunteer such until asked.
Volunteering unnecessary personal details might make employers feel uncomfortable, since it's illegal for them to ask in the first place. It might also implant negative thoughts. For example, if you proudly write that you have three children, an employer may speculate that you won't be able to travel or work late hours when needed, whether or not it's true.
Never put your social security number in your resume. Employers need it only when they hire you. Job banks and recruiters never need it. If you provide it anyway, you're tempting criminals to steal your identity, among other things.
Some professions, such as those in science and medicine, require a Curriculum vitae (CV). While a CV is typically more detailed than a resume, you still don't need to include your most personal details in the U.S. equivalent. If you're applying for a job outside of the U.S., that's a different story. In some countries, a version of the CV is the norm over a resume. The laws are different, so you might be required to include some personal details that aren't necessary in the U.S.
It's better to omit your salary history or requirement.
Some online resume forms allow you to include your salary history or specify your salary requirement. While it's nice of the job banks to be so thorough, you can bet they're doing it more for the benefit of employers and recruiters than you. It's up to you, but most career experts agree that it's not a good idea to volunteer salary information up front. You might price yourself out of contention or sell yourself cheap, before an employer even looks at your resume. Skip these fields, or type open or negotiable. Get employers interested in you during interviews, then negotiate salary when a job offer is near or in hand.
If a job site provides a salary-requirement field only to help you filter job opportunities, then it's okay to include the salary you desire. But leave yourself some room to negotiate. Otherwise, your perfect opportunity might get filtered out, as employers are not likely to offer top dollar in their job ads.
All this aside, if an employer specifically requests your salary history or requirement up front, some career experts advise that there's not much you can do but provide it, while others suggest ways around it.
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