Privacy and Security for the Online Job Seeker

The online world can be a dangerous place and online job search sites are no exception. Monster.com recently revealed that hackers broke into its system and that all users of the service may be at risk of having had their personal information stolen. Read more about the Monster.com debacle here.

The World Privacy Foundation lists a few tips online job seekers should keep in mind when using the Internet to apply for jobs:

1. No matter what site you access, you should always be extremely careful about giving out your SSN, date of birth, gender, race, and any sensitive medical or personal information.

2. There is never a circumstance in which you should give an employer or Web site a scan of your driver's license, your credit card number, your bank account information, plus your SSN and date of birth. Valid employers will not ask for a credit card number, even to conduct a background check.

3. Please keep in mind that some job ads are for fake jobs that are scams. For more information about this topic, please see the Consumer Job Fraud Tips page at the World Privacy Forum.

4. The Foundation encourages all job seekers to either accept only session cookies at job sites, or to opt-out of "tracking" cookies wherever possible. This is true even if you are just browsing job ads and not posting a resume. For more information about cookies, see their page on cookie privacy.

5. And finally, before you post a resume online, please read their cautions and tips on how to do this. General tips on resume posting can be found here.