Re: Security Architect Needed in VA!

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:09:04 -0500, ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Moe Trin) wrote:

their troll ads (where they solicit resumes for non-existent jobs)

I hope that you don't mind illuminating me on what they do with the
information they collect from those resumes.

Job placement agencies (recruiters, head hunters, pimps) make their money
by the fees that they charge the company (up to 20% of the annual salary
of the candidate) for those candidates they successfully place. Some may
also charge the candidate a fixed fee or salary percentage. (Some even
charge you "up-front" fees - avoid those recruiters.) The rational is
that they do the preliminary screening, and hide the name of the
prospective employer (which may shield the company from legal problems,
hide company planned business changes, and so on). This is a competitive
business (the local Yellow Pages from the primary telephone company here
has 8 pages of listings under "Employment Agencies", 4 for "Employment
Contractors - Temporary Help" and 1 for "Executive Search Service"), and
the winner is the one who has a list of "qualified" candidates they can
submit right now. How do they get those names for openings that their
customer companies doesn't even know exist yet? They collect them with
generic ads.


The main problem for the individual is that the job you are expecting does
not exist. Your name (and resume/CV) will be submitted for any job that the
recruiter happens to see that you might be even slightly qualified for. A
major problem with recruiters is that they will re-write your resume/CV
often without telling you what new skills you have suddenly acquired. They
do this to make your skills appear more closely matched to what the
customer is searching for. (The HR personal that receive the resumes from
recruiters invariably have no technical skills, and merely check that the
resume/CV has the same buzz-words that are listed on the internal job
requisition form - '"3 years of $FOO", check, "5 years of $BAR" check, "2
years of $BAZ" - hmmm, not here - reject'.) This falsification is fairly
well known, and there have been cases publicized of some company wanting
5 years experience on a product that has only existed for three, and yet
the recruiters have no trouble supplying candidates with that experience.
This is the reason we request a copy of the candidate's resume/CV at the
first interview do detect such "improvement".

There is an advantage for the candidate to have the resume/CV re-written,
and the recruiter is often more experienced in the field and knows what a
"good" resume/CV looks like. (There are resume/CV services that the
applicant can pay to do the same job - often helpful as the candidate
rarely has the skill at _writing_ the resume/CV.)

I don't know how much of an issue identity theft is in the job search
industry. Certainly the issue exists, and you would do well to check out
the recruiter before you contact them. The more ethical agencies do take
care to prevent personal information from being ill-used. However, the
information _should_ be no more than can be found in your local telephone
book - name, address, and phone number. "Sensitive" information (such as
the Social Security Number in the USA) should not be divulged to the
recruiter, as there is no legal requirement for that information.

Thank you very much for a thorough explanation. I wasn't aware of
that side of the job placement agencies.

May be because of these deceptive practices of 'professional resume
writers' is that some people feel that it's OK to spruce up one's own
resume, and that many people say that if you can't get a job ii's just
a matter of re-writing the resume.

Regarding the identity theft issue I found a reference to what I
remembered:

'People who post their resumes on Monster.com, the world's largest
job-seeking site, "face considerable threats to their privacy,"
according to a watchdog group. In a 24-page report, The Privacy
Foundation on Wednesday accused Monster of attempting to sell users'
private data to marketers, failing to completely remove resumes after
job-seekers deleted them, and sending user information to America
Online to satisfy the terms of a business agreement.'
[September 06, 2001]
<http://www.rajivshah.com/directory/privacy/index.html>

This report is also mentioned in:
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/workplace/>


Geo

.

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