While you may hear about online fraud, it tends to be focused on companies that derive their business from online purchases. Most job sites are free services, and the contact information found in a resume can just as easily be located elsewhere (e.g., telephone listings), so you can be assured that posting your resume online is a safe way to conduct a job search and manage your career.
However, you should be mindful about the type of information you include on your resume. For example, you should never include the following personal information:
- Social Security number
- Driver's license number
- Bank account information
- Credit card information
- Passwords
- Date of birth
Note: You should also never share the personal information listed above with a prospective employer until you are confident that the employer and employment opportunity are legitimate.
Posting Your Resume Online
Do you want employers to find your resume on the internet? Are you currently employed and need to be more careful about who can see your posted resume? Not all job searches are alike, but you are usually provided with a few different options:
Public Resume
Choosing the public (searchable) resume option allows employers to find your resume when they search a given database. Because employers may search for candidates before they post a job online, choosing the public option will give you the widest possible access to job opportunities.
Confidential Resumes
Do you prefer to keep your job search more private? You can save your resume as public, but hide your contact info, current company and references. Employers can contact you via a confidential email address. You can then view the job listing and decide whether to respond.
Important: If you hide your contact information, current company and references, you must also remove this information from your uploaded Word resume or copy-and-paste text resume.
Block Companies from Seeing Your Resume
If you want to post your resume on a job board, but don't want specific employers to know you're looking for a job, you may block certain companies from finding your resume.
Note: If you are concerned an employer may find your resume before you block the company, you can set your resume to private when you post it and then change the status to public after you've selected the companies to block.
Private Resumes
Choosing the private (non-searchable) resume option will prevent employers from finding your resume in searches. However, you can still search for jobs and apply online using your private resume.
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