There are many places online to post your resume, and some sites take steps to secure your privacy. But if you care about your privacy, you must not depend on the site to do it for you.

Contact information in a hard copy of your resume is usually designed to make it as easy to get a hold of you as possible. After clearly and boldly stating your name, you include as many viable phone numbers, mailing addresses and email addresses as possible.

An online resume, on the other hand, should have only one anonymous way to contact you. When you post a resume online, delete:

your name

personal phone numbers

business phone numbers (of course!)

personal email addresses

business email address (of course!)

Replace the name of your current employer with a one line description of the company. If your company is well-known keep the description general enough as to not give it away. For example, if you work for The Home Depot describe it as a

"major home improvement retailer",

not "the largest home improvement retailer in the world".

Finally, your point of contact. Your contact information is limited to a unique online email address that would be difficult to trace to you personally. I recommend one of the major suppliers of free online mail services such as Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or G-Mail. These companies have learned that customers do not want obtrusive advertising sent with their emails. If you use a service other than ones I have mentioned, be sure there are not any banner ads, cutesy designs, smiley faces, embarrassing links or anything else non-business like sent in your email.

To be taken seriously, choose a business-like email name. CutiePie, HotChick, and StudMuffin are not considered names for serious job seekers. A suggestion that seems to work well is names related to your job title such as CstAccountant, ElecEngineer, WbMaster.

Be selective in deciding where you post your resume. Anyone with access to a server can post it. But it is the large, well-known job sites are more likely to take steps to keep your resume information secure.

Jay Edward Miller
http://www.resumesavvyllc.com