For various reasons, a lot of job seekers choose to put their resumes up on job boards such as Monster or Career Builder in the ‘confidential’ mode. What this means is that your contact information isn’t released to people running searches. Sometimes they don’t want their current employer to know they are looking; sometimes they have received a few too many offers for their own business (lately I’ve gotten a lot of offers to be a Farmer’s Insurance Sales Franchise owner/operator). Upon occasion it is because they are a senior candidate that hires other people and they don’t want employment/staffing agencies calling them for sales pitches.
So here’s a tip for those of you using the ‘confidential’ feature. If you upload a resume with your name on it, I can see it if I open the profile. If you save the document as ‘JohnDoe 2010’ I know your name and your employment history, and guess what? I can run a search for you on LinkedIn, or Google, or call your company and ask for you.
You need have a blank document that you save as ‘CareerBuilder2010’ (or some other generic name). By blank I mean take off all your contact info. That means headers, footers, etc. If you are *really* trying not to let your company know you are looking, keep the company name confidential, and make sure you strip out any acronyms referring to projects or products.
Whatever your reasons for not wanting your contact information visible, it takes a little more work than just hitting the ‘confidential’ key.