CV’s & Resumes – Your personal information, keeping it safe and accurate

I have read so many blogs over the past few weeks about the security of your personal information, and how many different ways that the world can access your career history.  There was talk about aggregating all of your information onto one website, is this really want we want?

Maybe you have a professional profile on LinkedIn and another more social one on Facebook, they serve very different purposes so what benefit do you gain from a combination of these.  Say that you have also posted your CV on a few job boards over the years for different roles, if you aggregated all of these channels I cannot imagine that this will paint a very accurate impression of who you are today.

Then of course there are several ways that your CV or resume can be electronically read, and this is what is called CV parsing, ‘Burning Glass’ appear to be one of the leaders in this field.  The ability to select keywords from a CV has been around for a while but the ability to map it and compare it to industries to gain relevance is something a bit more original. Of course technology is only as good as the data entered into it.  Personally I still prefer an online profile, as used by twosteps, which is searchable against pre selected values and is less open to misinterpretation.  However, there is a place for using both CV parsing and online profiling which I believe Monster does and I am open to persuasion.

So what are the lessons you can learn from the mass availability of media channels to promote yourself and the technology that will either help or hinder you.

• Ensure you understand the privacy settings when creating an online profile
• Ensure your profile is always current
• Note all of the places where your profile or CV may be and clean these every 6-12 months.
• Don’t try and pre-empt what employers may look for by littering you profile or CV with searchable keywords
• Be honest and accurate, never lie or as it will always be exposed.

Your CV, whether electronic or in print, is the introduction to you from people who have never met you before.  Keep it simple and truthful, and remember to put your most recent experience first and not last.

Further Reading:

8 tips for writing an effective CV

What does your online profile say about you?