Does your resume put you at risk for cyber-attack?

It is no secret that sharing the slightest bit of personal information on the internet could put you at risk for a cyber-attack. As recruiting standards have moved from mailing resumes and cold calling to social media recruitment and e-mails, job seekers are following this trend and posting their resumes on social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter with their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) exposed putting them at risk for attack. We understand you need to get your resume out there to land that your dream job but what if your PII ends up in the wrong hands?

Here are some tips on how to market yourself while protecting your PII from attack.

1.     Limit the personal contact information from your online resume.

When posting your resume online for millions to see, be sure to exclude your home address, phone number and email address.

2.     Remove your clearance level from your resume

When sharing your resume on social media site such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, be sure to remove your clearance level from your resume. Many social networking sites have an abundance of fake profiles looking to gain access to the personal details of cleared individuals. Specifying your level on your resume could make not only make you but your organization a target for a cyber-attack.

3.     If this option is available, limit access to your full resume.

On many social networking sites, there are ways to protect your PII by limiting access to your full resume. Many job sites, including LinkedIn, allow you to choose the level of visibility for your resume. Some of these levels include completely open, viewable by employers only, and semi-private.

• Completely open  |  Posting your resume on a social networking site as completely open means that anyone on that social site can view your resume and, therefore, all of the PII that you include on it. This is the least secure option and makes job seekers vulnerable to cyber-attack.

• Viewable by employers only  |  When reading this, many people assume that if they post their resumes with this filter, they are safe from cyber-attack. However, that’s not always the case. Making your resume viewable by employers only means that employers, recruiters, or anyone who pays for the resume database may view your resume. While many employers pay to search these resume databases, there are others who pay to steal the PII found on these sites. So, when posting your resume using this filter please be sure to post the cyber safe version of your resume.

• Semi-Private  |  Making your resume semi-private is your best bet when trying to market yourself to potential employers and protect your PII. When you make your resume semi-private it allows your resume to be searchable by employers, but it also blocks your contact information from being viewable. If an employer is interested in a candidate that they have found on a job site with a semi-private filter on their resume, they can reach out to the candidate using direct message or InMail. If messaging capabilities aren’t available, usually the job site will notify the candidate about an employers’ interest. This will give the job seeker, if interested, a chance to contact the potential employer and market themselves while keeping their PII safe.

For more tips on how to protect yourself against cyber-attack stay tuned to our social media page for the remainder of October!