(May 23, 2008)
Interbiznet has always stressed the importance of respecting the candidate. This means from the very first thought of requiring their talents to keeping in touch with them after they are gone. This is true for the employer and the companies involved in the placement.
As electronic recruiting has developed the ability to keep candidate data secure has increased on one hand and decreased on the other. In reality, when a secure software is developed a new programs is created that puts chinks in its armor. This is seen very clearly in the world of viral protection software - they let you know it is happening and sell you on the fact that they come up with a solution faster than their rivals. In most cases companies do not want to discuss the fact that their data has been compromised or their security breached.
CollegeRecruiter.com, a job
board for college students searching for internships and recent graduates
hunting for entry level jobs and other career opportunities, recently announced that it will no longer offer resume searching to its clients in order to create safety for their jobhunters.
"We've become increasingly concerned about the ability of our staff and the
job board industry as a whole to protect the interests of the candidates who
use our sites," said Steven Rothberg, President and Founder of
CollegeRecruiter.com. "Those who post their resumes to CollegeRecruiter.com
or any other job board have a legitimate right to expect their data to be
safeguarded.
There have been significant increases in the number of
organizations and individuals trying and sometimes succeeding in accessing
the resume banks of job boards in order to download dozens, hundreds, and
perhaps thousands of resumes for the purpose of identity theft. Many job
boards, including ours when we offered resume searching, had security
measures in place that prevented many and probably the overwhelming majority
of these schemes.
But how do you guard against financial service
organizations and other legitimate organizations purchasing resume searching
and then using the information they find in the resumes to sell their
products and services to the candidates? No candidate wants to receive
emails or phone calls from a stock broker who sees that the candidate makes
a lot of money or is just entering a profession in which they will likely
make a lot of money. As a college job board, a lot of our candidates fall
into that second bucket."
Identity theft seems to be the boogey man that is used to scare people into purchasing protection products, being more cautious with their credit cards usage, and accepting limits on their daily bank withdrawals and purchase.
The number of US adult victims of identity fraud decreased from 10.1 million in 2003 and 9.3 million in 2005 to 8.4 million in 2007.
Total one year fraud amount decreased from $55.7 billion in 2006 to $49.3 billion in 2007.
The mean fraud amount per fraud victim decreased from $6,278 in 2006 to $5,720 in 2007.
The mean resolution time was at a high of 40 hours per victim in 2006 and was reduced in 2007 to 25 hours per victim. The median resolution time has remained the same for each Survey year at 5 hours per victim.
Protecting the candidates identity from groups that want to sell to them sounds good. Interbiznet has recently started receiving calls for former employees from firms that wish to offer investment opportunities.
It would be interesting to know where they got such an old list.
Perhaps the most important thing here is that steps to protect the candidate shows concern and respect for them as individuals. This is vital when you need to have a long term, on going conversation with your former, current and future employees for the success of your business.