Your Stealth Job Search

With a huge number of career-related Web sites — one estimate puts the figure at 80,000 — you should have no trouble being seen by recruiters and prospective employers … as well as your current boss, co-workers and clients.

So, what can you do to keep your online job search a secret? Here are 4 ideas to help your stealth job search suceed.

Trust, but verify

Before posting your resume to a Web site, such as Monster.com or HotJobs.com check to see what levels of anonymity are offered. Many career sites let you conceal your identity, or will alert you before interested companies can read your resume.   If you’re in doubt about a site’s confidentiality policy, contact them for clarification. Or don’t post your resume there at all.  This also works to your advantage becasue most recruiters won’t touch a candidate who has their resume on a job board because most employers will not pay them for candidates the recruiter found on a job board.  Catch-22?  Yes but the HR community started practicing this more than 5 years ago and the recruiters have found no choice but to play along.

Stealth Job Search = Stealth email address

This is a minor detail … that’s not so minor.

Legally, your employer has a right to read all email sent to and from their computers. If you use your company’s email address and conduct your job search on their time, you could be setting yourself up to be terminated.

Don’t risk it. Put your personal email address on your resume. Or, use one of the many free email services, available from Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com and others.  Alternatively if you use a one page resume use your LinkedIn email address – it’s an exceptional alternative.  Like your LinkedIn profile – your LinkedIn email address can be customized.  If you can’t get your name – then get an address that means something like “Master  Programmer” which identifies your specialty… If Programming is your specialty   Here’s another great article on Stealth Job Search tactics.

Stealth Job Search = Stealth mailing address

Worried about putting your home address on your resume? While I’ve never heard of anyone being visited by a stranger after posting a resume online, you might want to conceal it from your boss. Example:

5089 Elmhurst, Royal Oak, MI 48073

could simply become

Suburban Detroit

Stealth Job Search = Stealth current employer

Try to replace the name and address of your employer with a brief description. The more prominent the company, the more you’ll conceal. Example:

FedEx Corporation, Memphis, TN

could become

Fortune 500 Express Delivery Corporation, Southeastern US

NOTE: when disguising employment or other information, keep in mind that eventually, the actual names, facts and figures will come out. So, for example, don’t describe your company as “World’s Leading Pet Retailer” when it’s really “Bob’s Poodle Palace.”

Conceal information in a way that protects you now, while avoiding major disappointments later

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Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters blog and download the free audio CD.