Seeking a Job Online: Protect Personal Data

Itzbig, The founders pioneering the use of the Internet as a tool to match hiring agencies with qualified candidates some years ago, have discovered and are now warning job seekers to be cautious when entering personal data on job boards.

The executives of itzbig, Jim Hammock and Hank Stringer indicated that a Symantec report which was released earlier this week has provided substantiating documentation of a problem. This report revealed that hackers have now gained access to hundreds of thousands of resumes located on the Monster.com website.

Recently, ConsumerAffairs.com announced and warned that job hunters are vulnerable as evidenced by calls being received by some are indicative of a scam.
Hammer and Stringer were the original founders of Hire.com in 1990. Both agree that the examples given by ConsumerAffairs.com are suggestive of the need for the industry available to Internet users with haste move forward with interactive sourcing networks that offer greater privacy controls. The controls will provide users with complete anonymity as well as user controlled access to their personal data.

"It is important for Internet users to know that when they put their personal data on the web, it is all but impossible to retrieve. There are numerous tools that harvest this data and re-purpose it for unintended uses. So my first advice is don't do it. The ideal network gives job seekers the ability to control their job search in that they determine what personal information they choose to reveal for each respective interaction with an employer or recruiter." said Hammock.
Stringer suggested both perspective employers with job applicants should explore what actually works without the applicant disclosing their identity until the actual job is being offered.