Employers Trolling for Current Employee Resumes? 229
powderhound asks: "Recently, my employer started looking for new employees and started to find the resumes of current employees on the job Web sites. I've heard that management was not pleased. In the old days, before Web job sites, you could job hunt with relative certainty that your current employer would not find out until you gave notice. Now, any employer wishing to check on their employee's desire to find a new job need only sign up on the job Web sites and start trolling. How do we, as employees looking to change jobs, protect ourselves from possible discovery, and even worse, retribution? What have you done to protect yourself? Do you think employers are trolling job sites for their own employees?"
Re:The Real Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'm not saying its like that EVERYwhere, but in most large corporations, and many small ones, HR is not your friend. This is really sad because years ago it was just the opposite. EA obviously has a poor HR department.
Easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Semi-relevent story (Score:5, Interesting)
One year and 3 days later, happily employed, I found a little time one night to resume that piece. Once satisified, I posted the image. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to set my alarm that night. I overslept the next day. When I finally arrived at work, my boss was real happy to see me. You see, this forum I was posting artwork to was the exact same forum that he discovered me with. He read these February posts about gunning for a job at these two other places and became concerned. That, coupled with my lateness to work, gave his imagination a lot to work with. By the time I got there,though, he had discovered the YEAR of the post, and a good laugh was had by all.
There's no real moral to this story unless you seek it. It's just my own little anecdotal evidence that one should be careful about what he or she says on the net. This may seem like common sense, but it is funny how these little things can nip you in the rear. In my case, it was totally accidental.
This probably isn't all that relevent to the story. It might have been a more useful post in another story recently about somebody getting in trouble at work over something found in a search engine. No offense taken if this is considered off-topic, but yeah, employeers can see you on the net. Behave.
Re:The Real Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
What they really want is the most cost-effective relationship possible. And that just may be slavery. There are laws against outright slavery, but "economic" slavery is not outlawed by any means. Most world economies thrive and require it.
So spend, spend, spend little consumerbots!
Re:The Real Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a two-way street, but management has a big SUV that takes up both lanes.
I live in a rural area, and it has been known for the grapevine to "black list" certain people at potential employers, outside of official channels. When I lived in an urban area, it is common to find that most employers are equally crappy. It is very common for companies to want to pay practially nothing. Being a independent contractor could be great, but even that is highly volatile. The grass is always greener and all that.
"Still, I wonder if it is legal to fire someone just for having looked for alternate employment options."
IIRC, in some states it is legal, such as South Carolina ("will to work" or "right to work", I don't remember exactly).
Really rewarding and enjoyable workplaces are not particularly common. I worked briefly for one Fortune 500--but family run--company, and it was a great place to work (ample training, good benefits, etc.). Too bad it was in a part of the country I didn't want to live in.
Re:Easy. (Score:1, Interesting)
Been there, done that - ish... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the huge tech firms in Ottawa was having a career fair(Cognos) and I decided to wander over to see if they needed any techs. While waiting in line I got interviewed by the local paper(the Citizen) and my quote was included in the article along with my name. Of course this gets back to my boss about 2 weeks later, via one of his clients who recognized my name(never found out who, don't really care).
Boss could not do anything, it was on my time(weekend) and my personal business. It pissed him off, but if he did _anything_ it would have put him in a very bad situation. Firing me would have been without cause, I was already in the lowest job in the company, (with coresponding pay) and I basically could not be touched for it.
As in this case, maybe your boss should be wondering why so many of their employees are looking to get out.
Now, I have a new job, and a 25% increase in pay. I really love the part where I hit my yearly review at my old job and they gave me 0% pay raise! When I left that company they had to hire three people to replace me.
I'll stop ranting now, enjoy!
Re:Semi-relevent story (Score:3, Interesting)
Boss: "That was a call from a headhunter?"
Me: "Yeah."
I ended up with a hefty $5k raise as a retention incentive. w00t!
Re:Easy. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm...the HR person responsible for bringing me job applicants to interview seems to spend his life trolling monster.com. And I work for one of the largest private employers in my state.
The amazing thing is that he brings me very few "duds". Most of the people who make it this far really seem to be as sharp as their resumes claim, and I'd say I've given him a thumbs up on over 75% of them. Not that we've hired them all, but the ones we have gotten have been really good.
Make up your mind (Score:2, Interesting)
No? Then why should your employer be pleased that you are looking to replace him?
Do onto other as you wish to be done onto yourselve. Or something like that.
For whatever this may mean you and your employer have a relationship. You both expect certain things of each other. The employer expects you to turn up each day and that he can plan his business counting on the fact that you are there. You on the other hand count on the fact that your employer will keep paying you the agreed salary so you can plan your live around a steady income.
If you don't think you own your employer some loyalty then you shouldn't expect any back and ofcourse vice versa.
Now either of you may decice that it is time to end it. That is fine. The decent thing is to make it clear. Again, do to others as you want to be done onto. If you don't want to find your desk packed up when you arrive for work in the morning then you can't say "Oh I quit with the months notice and I got a month worth of vacation time that I am going to use now and today is a half day."
First you should decide if it is over or if with some adjustments you are willing to continue (again this goes for both parties). If not then you should be clear and open about it. Let the amount of time of notice that you give reflect how badly it has gone wrong. If you feel totally screwed over then by all means, 1 month notice. But if it just a feeling of wanting something else give the other sometime. You don't want to be fired on the spot and your employer don't want to loose you on the spot.
But IF you decide to leave do it. Then you shouldn't be afraid they find out because you already made up your mind.
But if your just testing the water with your resume on monsterboard then that offcourse gets a negative reaction. Again how would you react if you find that your employer has your job listed there just to test the waters?
What is good for the gander is good for the goose.
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Interesting)
I was an HR Recruiter. WAS. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway heres how it goes when a company doesn't do all/any of its own HR. They have a list, sometimes exclusive other times not, of HR/Consulting firms that they send job requests to. Those requests specify the length of the contract, the salary range, a brief (VERY) job description, and desired skills. It then became my bosses job to hand me that piece of paper from which I had to parse out a monster (we ONLY used monster for some reason) search string and start calling people.
First off we had an implied policy that we didn't bother with confidential resumes. Send an email and then leave it. Our response rate from those was exceedingly low, single-digit percentages.
We did have an easier time than many consulting contracting firms because nearly all of our contracts were temp-to-perm and my employer had farily good benefits. The way that works is a new hire was an employee of ours for 3 to 6 months, recieving pay and benefits from us while working for our client. At the end of that term, if the client was happy the client could then hire that employee on as thier own without paying us a finders fee. My employer got a (significant) cut, our clients got good people, and good people got full time, permanent jobs.
That sounds all well and good but human resources is not some place I can work and feel good about it. I had to look at a resume, review the stated skills in comparision to the desired skills, look at the employment history and see if/how those skills were actually used, and if that matched then I made a call (resumes with phone numbers get priority, because we can get you right away) and talked to the candidate to see if they were really interested.
Now I get to take a job description that was less than a paragraph with some notes/comments from my boss and tell (NEVER sell) the candidate about the position. Then if they were interested I had to ask questions and see if this person really had what we wanted for the job. It was hard because my boss (and by implication our clients) had very specific requriements, there was no room for 'I think this guy would be good' I had to take the vagaries of resumes and HR talk and salary requirements and quantify them. My coworkers (Hi Jeff, Julie, Lee, and Steve!) were great people and could handle that. It is very difficult.
Now coming back to the point, when we saw a resume of on of our people. We DID NOT CARE. If anything it was a good guide, as I'm reading the first few parts of the resume "Oh wow this guy would be perfect....because he is already doing (job) for (client).". I usually printed those out and used them as examples to compare to other resumes.
If you are looking for something better and not serious about going to a new job, you are wasting my time and yours. If you are "seeing whats out there" then you are a liability, it looks bad for us when an employee quits in the middle of a contract, it wastes my time, it wastes our clients time, and it shows an apalling lack of responsibility on your part. We were not hiring short-term contractors who were looking for adventure and new jobs every 3 months, we were looking for reliable, competent, full-time, well paid, permanent employees. If you want to see whats out there tell us when we call, we'll tell you what is out there, but we have other shit to do. Don't sit there chatting us up.
If you honestly are looking for a new job then I offer you the following advice. If you have an itemized list of skills, programming languages, apps etc. on your resume you need to be able to te
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I can tell of how people look for jobs, I can't believe anyone ever gets one!
It makes me sad to see how pathetic people are about looking for jobs. The only people who should be like this are people who have nothing to offer! (oh, wait...)
Take it from an employer: We want to hire you! Often as badly (or worse) than you want the job! If you come to us with this crappy "oh please hire me, I'm desperate and scared" attitude, 1) We won't want to hire you (unless we have an opening for sycophant) and 2) If we do hire you, we'll treat you just like you're expecting.
Here's a better approach: Treat the employer like you have something they want. They'll treat you with more respect.
If your employer would fire you for looking for another job, you are better off without them.
(And if an employer would fire someone just for looking, they are probably glad to be rid of you. I'd never treat someone who works for me like that. I'd ask them if they were unhappy, and if there was some way I could make it worth their while. Of course I also fire people if they're not worth my while.)
Re:The Real Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
The contract with your employer is just that, a contract. If that's the extent of your connection to your employer, and if you're happy, then fair enough. But I've found that I was happiest where I also had a good working relationship with my employer; management saw me as an asset, and did their best to accommodate me. I enjoyed the position, and went out of my way to do what I could for the company.
Better method: Deliberate typo in name (Score:3, Interesting)
I deliberatly [1] spell my name / address slightly differently.
I won't show up if anyone googles for the real me, yet dosn't get anyone suspicious if I use a deliberate fasle name.
An added advantage is you get to see were employers/agencys share your details / mailing lists etc as when company X post something to you, you know they must have got your name from company Y as it contains the misspeling you gave solely to company Y.
[1] Yes I know it's spelt wrong, Im dyslexic and cant be arsed running ispell OK.
Re:The Real Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
The key word there is "accommodate". Friends "care" about each other. Employers "accommodate" employees. It's not that your boss doesn't care if you live or die; he cares in the normal human sense, not in the sense of friends or family. A good employer fosters a good "working relationship" (to use your words), but that's still part of the "work in exchange for money" relationship.
In other words, I don't look for my employer to "allow" me to take time off when I need it because they "care" about me. I take personal time off when I need to, because it's what I insist on in a working relationship. It doesn't matter what their motivation is for accommodating my needs, and that's key. The original poster seemed to be whining that the motivation of his employers was "wrong", and I'm saying that motivation doesn't matter. All that matters is what you negotiate with your employer as far as your working relationship.
People may be happy when they get a employer that "gives" them a lot of accommodation, but I submit that people are happiest when they feel they have control over their part of the relationship, and aren't mentally depending on the good will of what they perceive as their "superior".
I don't post a resume ... I look for jobs posted (Score:3, Interesting)
Old School Way (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep, a calculated risk, could have gotten fired, etc. At that point, I didn't care, either way I was not getting enough loot, plain and simple, it was either get the raise or go seriously looking around anyway, so I thought I would try silly melodrama and it worked.
Today,though, I don't think I would do that, I would make dang sure I had another job before borking the current one, the job climate is not the same today and all the cost of living factors are so much higher (relative AND bar knapkin figures adjusted for inflation).
So, what is wrong with using a code name on job applications, at least the web facing ones? You could at least have the first level of anonymity that way for your resume.
Re:The Real Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
It is a trend that is especially strong in companies that do IT, and consulting has it worst of all. I worked for 13 years in a large firm in the internal IT department. Most of us do long term operational support, with a big upgrade done every 3 to 5 years in various systems. We were privatized 3 years ago and bought by a large firm with a strong background in IT consulting, but very little experience in operations. Their attidute towards employees is very simple: you are a replaceable cog.
They do not seem to care that the long term employees know the systems inside and out. They do not seem to have caught on that long term operations is not the same as a consulting gig. In the consulting world they expected employees to move up - or out. We have lots of people that have done the same job for 5 years or more at stretch. Some key people operating large legacy systems that are highly customized are very difficult to replace.
The new company, to get its foot in the door, agreed to a contract that loses money given our current level of salary and benefits. They now expect us to take a 25% cut, or leave.
This does not improve employee "engagement" or moral.
I was planning on working for another 17 years, collecting a pension, and living happily every after. The old employer wasn't perfect, but they never treated us with total contempt. Now I think I will stick it out until my kids get through university and move on to something else as fast as a can. If they actuall force the 25% cut on us, I'll leave sooner.
There are only 6 people in provice I leave that know anything about the large enterprise app I maintain, and it is so highly customized that it will take a new person one to two years to know enough about the system to make anything but trivial updates. Do I have a backup? Do I have a trainee? Of course not. Gives me job security, but it certainly isn't a best practise. I used to have 2 to 4 people working under me.
So, I would not worry about being loyal to most large firms, they certainly do not value you.