Privacy vs. placement. Where and how you should post your online resume.

Resume Safety: Placement vs. Privacy

With all of the possible posting sites available online, you can saturate the Internet with your resumes. Is this a good thing? There are two issues to consider when posting your resume online.

1. Placement: where should you post it?
2. Privacy: how public do you want it to be?

What's the problem? The more exposure you get, the better, right? Not necessarily.

Recruiters get frustrated when the find the same resumes for the same people in every database they search. If you are not careful you will soon be labeled a “resume spammer.” When this happens you wont be considered for job openings that these recruiters are working to fill. Also the more sites you submit your resume to increase the case your current employer will see it. And yes, people do get fired.

Many of these problems can be avoided by limiting where you post your resume (Placement), other problems by limiting the amount of personal information in your resume (Privacy). Both of these issues must be addressed together. It is possible to be visible but private online, but just how visible you want to be is a question only you can answer.

Keeping your resume Cyber-Safe

1. Limit where you post. Post your resume in the databases of only one or two large popular job sites. At the same time, post it in the databases of one or two smaller job sites targeted to your specific industry, occupational group, or geographic location. This will give you both "maximum exposure" (many employers crossing industries and regions) and "targeted exposure" (employers looking for a smaller yet more highly qualified candidate pool.)

2. Read Privacy Policies. Note what personal or "individually identifiable" information they will collect, how it may be handled, and whether or not they reserve the right to sell it. Some sites are good and promise to never sell your info, but others reserve the right to sell your personally identifiable information to third parties. The BENZHI site does not sell your information.

3. Avoid sites that force you to register a full profile (i.e., your resume) before you can do any search of the job database. You should be allowed to evaluate a site to make sure it's a good fit to you before adding your information to their database. You may search the entire EFL job database at BENZHI without registration. However, in order to prevent spam, BENZHI does require restration before the contact information from an employer is displayed.

4. Avoid sites that offer to "blast" your resume. Such wide distribution may offer little, if any, control on where a copy of your resume could end up. Your resume is never blasted at BENZHI.

5. Limit access to your personal contact information. Options range from blocking access to just the contact information to keeping your resume completely out of the database searched by employers. Choose the option that works best for you. Remember that if you go for full confidentiality, it may be up to you to remember to delete contact info from your resume. Many job seekers trip up here because they fill out a form with their contact info, then cut and paste their whole resume into the box, forgetting about the contact info usually found within a resuem. The database's protection of your contact info only refers to what you put in the form, not in the text paste box. You may use a user name without using any personally identifiable information at the BENZHI site.

6. Modify the contact information you put on your resume. Remove all standard "contact information" -- name, address, phone numbers -- and replace your personal e-mail address with an e-mail address set up specifically for your job search. This is where those services like Yahoo! email come into play. Make sure you use an appropriate e-mail name like This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Names like " This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it " or " This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it " are not good names for serious job seekers.

7. Modify your employment history. Remove all dates from your resume. Then, remove the names of all employers and replace them with accurate but generic descriptions. "Nuts n' Bolts Distributors, Inc." becomes "a small construction supplies distribution company" and "IBM" becomes "a multinational information technology company." If your job title is unique, replace it with an accurate but generic title, so "New England Regional Gadget Marketing Director" becomes "multi-state marketing manager of gadget-class products."

8. Don't let your resume sit there. Since many databases sort resumes by date of submission with the newest first, renew your resume every 20 days. If you don't get any response to your resume from the BENZHI site within 45 days of posting, try posting it at a later date. It could be that employers are not looking for people at the time of year when you posted your resume. It could also be that there is too much competition between candidates with the same skills and your resume is not rising to the top. Remember that resumes are purged from the BENZHI database every thirty (30) days. There are also some paid options available that will feature or place your resume at the top of the resume list. See the resume page for more details about this option.

9. When your job search is over, delete all resumes out there. Do not continue to "dangle the hook" and see what offers may come up. Your new employer may find you still fishing and demand an explanation. Some people are adding a "posted DATE" on the bottom of resumes they register online, but you will still have a tremendous amount of explaining to do if your resume is found to still be circulating. Whether or not you were planning a fast exit, you may find yourself on the way out the door.

BENZHI provides you with complete control over your resume. You may delete it, or modify it at anytime. Make sure that you retain your login information that was mailed to you at the completion of your registration. You must be logged-in in order to edit your resume and/or your profile. Resumes automatically expire ever 30 days.