Job Hunting? How To Safeguard Your Privacy And Still Get Called For Jobs
There are many important things to remember when job hunting online. Your privacy may be at risk and it is crucial to your job hunt to know the guidelines for safeguarding your privacy as well as getting employers to still call you for jobs.
There is a new system, required by the federal government that is meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of job applicants, and it is intended to create a more uniform definition of the word “applicant.” This means that resumes and search approaches that in the past that worked well, may no longer do the trick.
The new definition states than an applicant must “express interest” in the job, which means sending a resume, applying on the company’s web site, or using other means to apply that the company requests. This “expression of interest” must show that the applicant possesses all the qualifications for the job that is listed in the company’s job description and that those qualifications must be specific and measurable.
The applicant also must only be considered for a specific position and can not remove themselves from consideration for the specified job. This means that if there is a job opening in Colorado, but you have specified that you want to work in Chicago, the employer can assume that you have removed yourself from consideration.
Employers have to comply with these new rules and get a diverse applicant pool, so they have to keep the pool of applicants for each job relatively small and as random as possible.
To make sure you are considered for a job, there are several things you now need to make sure to do. First always follow the company’s instructions, so that if an employer says to apply for a given job online, and to enter a specific code, then be sure to do that. The consequences would be that your resume will never be seen.
Also, be sure to spell out your qualifications very clearly. Pay very close attention to the specific qualifications that the job is looking for and make sure your resume contains those exact words. Otherwise, your resume could be overlooked. This means that if the job description calls for “four years of teaching experience in the Early Childhood Education field,” make sure you put exactly “four years of teaching experience in the Early Childhood Education field” on your resume. Don’t just list a previous position in Early Childhood Education and the dates, and then expect them to figure it out because they won’t. This means that you will essentially have to rewrite your resume for each job opening that you are applying for.
Another thing that is important if you want to be called for jobs is to keep your resume completely current. The new rules allow the companies to pick a random pool of applicants by searching for the “most recent” qualified applicants on the job boards. This means that no one will ever look at a resume that is over two to three weeks old because of the large number of applicants.
When you are looking for a job it is important to target specific companies and visit their web sites often. This is where the first announcement of a job opening can often be found because employers post it on their own site before it is posted anywhere else. If they get enough applicants through their own site, it is unlikely the job will ever reach the job boards.
About one-third of all new hires come through employee referral programs, and companies are still permitted to run these programs at their discretion. They must only follow a consistent policy. If you choose to go this route, make sure to check out the company you are being referred to and talk to the human resources department personally. It is dangerous to pass personal information on an application through another employee.
Ways to safeguard your personal information while still applying for these jobs is to review the guidelines and registration rules before signing up with a job-hunting site. Remember that all the information that you include about yourself in an online resume is fair game for employers. Make sure you review your resume before you send it to anyone and never include extremely sensitive or personal information such as social security numbers or direct deposit bank account numbers on a general resume. It is better to be safe than sorry.
