But for all the good that the Web has contributed to the techie's employment effort, there's a serious dark side as well.
Loss of privacy and the inappropriate distribution of online resumes are two ever-increasing concerns. Studies show that they're the main culprits keeping female candidates from using the Web.
You've likely heard the horror stories: The HR rep who asks Employee A why her resume is featured on a job-search Web site, or Employee B why his resume is in a list of prospects culled from a staffing firm's recruitment site. Looking for a job while employed is obviously something you want to keep secret.
Posting resumes online, especially in the early days of job boards, was tantamount to tacking them on telephone poles along major highways in several countries. While these resumes get lots of eyeballs, other interested parties are eager to grab your employment history as well.
Some drawbacks candidates should be aware of:
These concerns likely keep most middle-aged and older workers from even attempting online job searches, says Dianne Mau, a national certified career counselor. Mau is program chair for the Career and Human Resource Development master's degree program at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.
"There's a lot of concern about privacy for mid-career employees, though not by college students looking for that first job," she says. Grads have few qualms about posting online or using the Internet, primarily because they've likely been using PCs and the Web for most of their school lives.
While RIT offers a job board online for students and alumni, helping them connect to cooperative work situations, Mau views Internet recruitment as very impersonal.
"It's hard to get a sense of who you're dealing with, on both sides. Tracking resumes and keeping info fresh seems a tremendous job as well," says the counselor, who's been at RIT for 26 years.
Her practice remains focused on accessing possible employers, writing cover letters, following up on mailed resumes, and maintaining important communication skills.
While she notes that tech professionals are likely to be very comfortable with the online job environment, she's not sure whether the tradeoff in privacy is necessary in such a tight labor market.
"IT grads are being recruited during college, and those in the field probably don't even need to post resumes since they'll probably be recruited while employed," she explains.
In response to privacy issues and data-grabbing, some sites have developed security guarantees, and they often prevent resumes and valuable employee information from being stolen off job boards and databases. Professional and organizational sites sometimes also offer to "camouflage" candidate identities and only release contact information with permission.
Best bet is to check out your level of privacy before uploading a resume.
