Employers Trolling for Current Employee Resumes?

powderhound asks: "Recently, my employer started looking for new employees and started to find the resumes of current employees on the job Web sites. I've heard that management was not pleased. In the old days, before Web job sites, you could job hunt with relative certainty that your current employer would not find out until you gave notice. Now, any employer wishing to check on their employee's desire to find a new job need only sign up on the job Web sites and start trolling. How do we, as employees looking to change jobs, protect ourselves from possible discovery, and even worse, retribution? What have you done to protect yourself? Do you think employers are trolling job sites for their own employees?"

Comments

no name?

[MikeFM]

Don't include your real name?

According to an Employment Advocate I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

...If you are thinking of "moving on", do not ask your current employer to match any offer made by anybody else: the reasoning being that even though they may consider you worth paying a little more to keep right now, they'll also consider you disloyal and a potential future problem. It's a fast track to being marginalised and finding your name at the top of the down-sizing list. Either take the new job, or silently stick with your existing postion.

On Posting Resumes to a Website

[sesshomaru]

There are unscrupulous employment agencies out there that will do the following:

1. Collect resumes posted to the Web on common job sites.

2. Submit them to employers with their contact information replacing yours.

3. Not tell you about it unless they get a bite.

4. Contact you about the job if they do get a bite, but not tell you any of the above.

Personally, I don't like the idea of any old person having access to my resume. It's too much information to give out anonymously. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a "passive" way to get a job. You have to go through the work of contacting people, by mail or Email yourself, rather that tossing your resume out there and hoping for a bite. This isn't the 90's after all, the job market sucks. (Sigh... I remember companies giving away Palms just for accepting an interview. Oh well, I made out pretty well myself, until the crash...)

Use privacy options

[ghee22]

Careerbuilder, Dice.com, Monster.com all have privacy options. One I use goes is similar to this: "keep my resume searchable but hide my name, phone number, email address, and my current employer's name"

So how do future employers contact you? They use the contact job seeker option on the website, such as Dice.com, and Dice would then forward the email to you. It is then up to you unveil your identity when replying back to the employer.

What you can do to further your privacy is use a new email address that doesn't have your name in it to inquire more about the job opportunity.

Good luck!

right to work

[stoolpigeon]

a 'right to work' state, is simply one that cannot have closed shops. in some states, if a workplace has a union then an employee must join that union to hold their job. in a right to work state, you can work for an employer and choose not to join the union. to my knowledge it has nothing to do with grounds for termination.
 
i do know that in AZ, which is a right to work state (but like i said i don't think the issues are connected) an employer can terminate someone for pretty much any reason (outside discrimination or something else illegal) but they have to pay part of the persons unemployment unless they can prove that person was fired for some good reason.

Re:The Real Problem

[Bill Dog]

At my first job, which was with, at the time, the 2nd largest software company in the world, managers were not allowed to put anything, absolutely NOTHING, positive in the annual performance reviews. So for every employee there was a written record of nothing but negative comments. I figured at the time it was sparked by wrongful termination suits filed by ex-employees, and the company was just trying to prep for them. Still, it didn't exactly do wonders for morale.

Re:Easy.

[antifoidulus]

Not sure how you feel about monster, but one benefit they do offer is that they can hide both your name and your current employers name(though the job description is still there if you want it of course) to all employers if you make your resume searchable. The employers who like your resume then can use monster to contact you and you can send the "unprotected" resume from there.

Today's word is "Trawling"

[nagora]

"Trolling" is Internet slang for trying to prompt a reaction using a (probably insincere) controversial stance. "Trawling" means to carefully go through something, often with a net, looking for some hidden resource or information.

If your boss wants to troll job websites then let him/her; s/he will eventually get banned and then you can post your CV without trouble.

TWW

Re:Today's word is "Trawling"

[Anonymous Coward]

Trawling is probably the better term here but your explanations are a little off.

Trawling and trolling are both fishing terms. Trawling involves dragging a net through the water to catch fish. Trolling involves dragging baited lines through the water to catch fish.

Both terms are used by analogy outside of fishing. "Trolling" applies where some bait is used, e.g. your example of trolling for responses in an internet discussion or for purposes of this article, if the employer was posting enticing offers to "catch" the employees looking for other jobs. "Trawling" applies where you are sifting for your objective without using bait.

In this case, the employer was probably merely sifting through the resumes without doing anything to attract emplyees to him, so "trawling" is more appropriate than "trolling", but to miss the origin of both terms in fishing is to miss the shading of meaning between the two terms.

Weed-out bad recruiters

[drewzhrodague]

Yes, there are lots of bad recruiters out there. I got so upset with the incompetence and wasted time from bad recruiters, that I started a website to track who's good, and who's bad. Recruiter-Rater lets you find and rate technical recruiters -- before you send your resume. Think of it as a public access recruiter database, without any marketing information. Users are free to post recruiters, post comments, and of course, rate them.

Re:The Real Problem

[tverbeek]

I wonder if it is legal to fire someone just for having looked for alternate employment options.

Unless you have a contract that states otherwise, it's completely legal. They can fire you for sticking your tongue out at someone. Or for driving the wrong kind of car to work. Or for performing in drag on weekends. "At will" employment means they can fire you for any reason that isn't explicitly prohibited by law. In most jurisdictions, this is limited to race, gender, religion, non-disqualifying handicap, age, and perhaps a handful of other characteristics.

The flip side of the coin is that you can quit "at will": because the boss stuck his tongue out at someone, drives the wrong kind of car, performs in drag on weekends, .... Whether this is true equity or not (i.e. giving equal power to both parties) is subject to debate, but that's how U.S. labor law treats it.