We’re often contacted and asked, “should we post our CV onto a job board so that we can attract employers and potential jobs to us rather than us having to go and find work ourselves?”
This may seem a really good idea – if employers can access a bank of CVs they can see that you fit a job and come and headhunt you. You could find yourself in a new role without actually having to apply for any jobs, as employers will be contacting you. This is often marketed as the easy way to recruitment and the modern way of finding a job, and for employers to find staff.
In reality it is our experience that often the opposite is the case. The CV banks we have access to are generally made up of candidates desperate for work who have little experience or no experience, or have something to hide in their background. We rarely see candidates with CVs stored on job banks that are actually those we think would fit a specific vacancy. There are very often issues with these types of candidates and in almost 20 years I don't think we have ever been able to recruit by sourcing a CV from a job site CV bank.
An incident this week has led us to issue strong advice on not posting your CV onto a job board of any description, but instead to apply directly for specific vacancies as and when they crop up. I should add that there is no problem submitting your CV to reputable recruitment consultants of course..
One of the problems with putting your CV onto a CV bank is that you have absolutely no control over who sees your details. So for example if you are working at a small company in London who decide to take out a subscription for the job board that you are registered with, then there is nothing to stop them from seeing that you have your CV lodged on the CV bank, and furthermore that you have been applying for jobs. You may not know this but certain job sites log when you last looked at vacancies or logged into your account, and they display this information to any potential employers so that they can see how fresh you are in your search for work.
This means that potentially your employer can also see when you were last looking for a job and they may not be overjoyed to find that you were last logged in 24 hours before, when they thought you were quite happy in your current role.
There are just too many risks involved with CV uploading and storage because there is so little control for you over exactly who sees your details and when.
A few years ago we took the decision with our own job board Chancerylane.co.uk that we would not enable CV uploads onto the system. Instead CVs are only sent directly to vacancies you apply to. Whilst Chancery Lane is a small and fairly specialist legal job board used primarily by Ten Percent Legal for its own vacancies, we think this is the best policy.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals. Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.
This may seem a really good idea – if employers can access a bank of CVs they can see that you fit a job and come and headhunt you. You could find yourself in a new role without actually having to apply for any jobs, as employers will be contacting you. This is often marketed as the easy way to recruitment and the modern way of finding a job, and for employers to find staff.
In reality it is our experience that often the opposite is the case. The CV banks we have access to are generally made up of candidates desperate for work who have little experience or no experience, or have something to hide in their background. We rarely see candidates with CVs stored on job banks that are actually those we think would fit a specific vacancy. There are very often issues with these types of candidates and in almost 20 years I don't think we have ever been able to recruit by sourcing a CV from a job site CV bank.
An incident this week has led us to issue strong advice on not posting your CV onto a job board of any description, but instead to apply directly for specific vacancies as and when they crop up. I should add that there is no problem submitting your CV to reputable recruitment consultants of course..
One of the problems with putting your CV onto a CV bank is that you have absolutely no control over who sees your details. So for example if you are working at a small company in London who decide to take out a subscription for the job board that you are registered with, then there is nothing to stop them from seeing that you have your CV lodged on the CV bank, and furthermore that you have been applying for jobs. You may not know this but certain job sites log when you last looked at vacancies or logged into your account, and they display this information to any potential employers so that they can see how fresh you are in your search for work.
This means that potentially your employer can also see when you were last looking for a job and they may not be overjoyed to find that you were last logged in 24 hours before, when they thought you were quite happy in your current role.
There are just too many risks involved with CV uploading and storage because there is so little control for you over exactly who sees your details and when.
A few years ago we took the decision with our own job board Chancerylane.co.uk that we would not enable CV uploads onto the system. Instead CVs are only sent directly to vacancies you apply to. Whilst Chancery Lane is a small and fairly specialist legal job board used primarily by Ten Percent Legal for its own vacancies, we think this is the best policy.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals. Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.
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