Protect Your Contact Information In an Online Resume

One of the current trade- offs in the job world is, whether you should keep your contact information safe while applying for jobs online, or should you make it available to all prospective employers. Online resume is the tactics that all of us, usually follow in this tech-savvy world to reach potential hiring managers. Your electronic resume may be posted over a job portal, included in your personal website, or sent as an attachment to job sources. While your contact information and other personal data is available online, it is easy for the people, receiving this information, to share it with others. Many scammers can access your online contact information, and put your security at risk. Thus, here are a few tips to strike the balance between security and exploring career opportunities.Audit Your Contact InformationYou need not to be surprised to know, how much information, one can access about you, after knowing your email address, and other contact information. If you have used your primary email dress to sign up to various social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. and if you use the same email address for your job search too, then potential employers may have access to your personal information through this email address.Nevertheless, to have a check over this, and restricting employers and other unauthorized sources from looking into your personal information, you can set the social networking accounts to private. Another suggestion from career experts is that you use a dedicated email address for a career hunt and keep your personal email address separate. Such an act will organize your job search as well as offer you a better privacy and security.Do not Mention Mailing/Physical AddressDuring your initial communication with all prospective employers, you need not to mention your actual mailing/physical address in the resume. However, you may give the details of the City and State of residence. If any hiring manager likes your profile and needs to contact you, he may contact you through your email address or phone number. You may verify if the employer is a legitimate one, and later submit your mailing address to him for further communications. Choose Google VoiceSome career design coaches suggest you to choose Google voice number, which can be used to connect to your personal land line or cell number. Choosing Google voice number facility can further safeguard you, as you need not to publish your personal number on your electronic resume. This facility is for free and you can even get the facility of having voice mails by potential employers sent to you, through an email.Audit Privacy Settings on Online Job Boards If you have your electronic resume registered with a few job boards, you should audit its privacy settings, to confidential or any other relevant option. Auditing privacy settings can ensure that your contact information is secured, while ensuring that your resume still remains search-able online.Do Not Give Unnecessary Information During Application ProcessYou may get carried away during the application process for any job, to give your contact and other personal information. However, before giving away any information, give a  thought to it, whether or not it is really required. You need not to give any sensitive information such as your bank account details etc. while in application process.Scams are becoming common in today's world. While utilizing electronic medium for job search remember that you are not uploading a sample resume for undergraduate students or any other student resumes, but your actual personal resume. So ensure that you are refraining yourself from giving any unnecessary contact information to potential readers, which can invite scams.