Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com offer two choices for resume privacy; Public and Private.  Both sites encourage you to select the Public option so prospective employers can find you.  Sounds logical, I'm looking for a job, I want employers to be able to find me, OK, I should select Public so they can.  But is the Public option really public?  One would think that the Public setting means just that, the public, the world, can see your resume.  Any prospective employer can go to Monster or Careerbuilder, do a search and find you.  To me that's what a Public selection implies, visible to everyone (i.e. the public).  After all, as a job seeker you want every prospective employer to be able to see your resume. 

Well, that's not exactly what they mean by "public".  What they really mean is that you are giving Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com permission to sell your resume.  They don't actually make it available to the "public", it is ONLY available to people that pay a fee to download resumes (see the fees of 1/31/2010 at the bottom of this blog as and the link to their Resume Subscription fees).  How much is your resume worth to Monster and Careerbuilder?  About a buck, that's right about a $1, maybe a bit more depending on the subscription the "employer" selects. 

So how does this all work?  Your resume posting is free, that seems pretty cool.  Everyone likes free.  But how can it be free?  It's free because you are effectively "inventory" to Monster and Careerbuilder.  First, they need lots of active job seekers to attract companies to post job postings (ads) on their sites and the more they have the more they can charge.  Second, the more resumes they have in their database the more they have to sell.  That's why your public resume represents inventory.  Your information is for sale to anyone willing to pay for access and yet it is not available to companies genuinely looking for employees - unless they are willing to pay for it.  A more honest or transparent way for Monster and Careerbuilder to handle this would be by having Privacy settings like Facebook and allowing you to choose what they do with your information rather than this masquerade of making your resume available to the public if you select that option. 

Think about this... in today's economy with record unemployment and under-employment, where employers and recruiters are inundated with resumes; who would pay to search or view resumes?  That seems really dumb to pay for access to a resume database when you have too many resumes coming in already!  So who would pay for that?  You've probably already figured it out, people or companies that don't expect you to contact them.  And who might that be?  Well my experience both personally, and from talking to job seekers and recruiters, is that the companies that are paying for access to the resume database are MLMs, 100% commission based jobs like insurance and financial products, some private schools or training companies, and in some cases franchisors to sell franchise opportunities.  Not exactly who you expected to be contacting you is it! 

Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com Privacy Settings:

• Public:  Not really available to the public, you are giving them permission to sell your resume to their subscribers.  See my comments above and the subscription fee schedules below. 
• Private:  Not available to the public and they won't sell your resume or information via their resume database.  You can only use your resume for responding to job postings. 

Upgrading Your Resume for Improved "Visibility"
I think this is a real sham and Careerbuilder should be ashamed for even offering this!  They promote the option of paying to "Upgrade Visibility" of your resume by putting it at the top of the search results in bold.  We already discussed who is paying to subscribe to the database, why on earth would you pay to make it more visible to people that aren't really employers!  And by the way, this is not cheap, they are asking as much as $150 (as of 1/31/2010, see link below) for 30 days at the "Titanium" level, $100 for the Platinum level, and down to $20 for the cooper level - I suspect most would almost be embarrassed to sign up for the cooper level.  Great marketing ploy with the naming and levels.   

Where Your Profile or Resume Really is Available to the Public
OK, so where can you post your resume where prospective employers can find it for FREE?  You should know the answer to this, LinkedIn.com LinkedIn profiles are available to the public at no charge and while there are options to make your profile available only to premium members, they don't sell your data because it is already available to the world for free.  While I would like to see privacy controls on LinkedIn like those on Facebook, it is the best networking forum around today.  And by the way, LinkedIn has had a job board for quite some time now and lots of great jobs are posted there.  LinkedIn also offers groups that you join and can participate in discussions with your peers (something Monster and Careerbuilder have yet to really figure out). 

For More Information on Using LinkedIn on Your Job Search - see the CareerXL.com page on Using LinkedIn

The Bottom line
Here's my position on this, you decide for yourself... 
My previous blog, "Why Are You Wasting Your Time on Monster and Careerbuilder, Are You Crazy?" discussed how few jobs are actually found on Monster and Careerbuilder.  I do feel that you should use these sites as part of your job search, but you should not pin ALL of your hopes on getting a job from these sites.  You have probably deduced that I am not in favor of making your resume "Public" on Monster or Careerbuilder.  Many advise this to keep your privacy or to keep your search confidential or to make you look more "exclusive".  My basis for this advice is more basic, the phone calls you get from a "Public" resume on Monster or Careerbuilder aren't going to be legitimate jobs anyway.  If you are "open" to ALL kinds of opportunities then by all means select "Public" and be prepared for the interesting offers you will get.  If you are only interested in a real job, then select "Private" and do the job hunting yourself, you pick who you will send your resume to. 

Obviously I do recommend posting your profile on LinkedIn and actively networking on LinkedIn and I also highly recommend using the LinkedIn job search and job posting.  There aren't nearly as many jobs posted there yet, but from what I have seen they seem to be legitimate and the LinkedIn job postings generally have you connecting to a real person and sending in your own resume as opposed to that ugly form Monster and Careerbuilder use (why do they think that is cool anyway?  That's a whole other blog isn't it).   

As always, I wish you the best and brightest future
Bill Grunau

Monster Resume Database Subscription Fees:
Ranges from $845 for two weeks of access in 100 mile radius and up to 400 resumes, to $5,200 for three months of access across the nation and up to 5,200 resumes. 
See link below for details:
Monster.com Resume Database Subscription Fees

Careerbuilder Resume Database Subscription Fees:
Ranges from $600 for two weeks and up to 50 resumes per day, to $9,553 for 300 resumes per day for one year (that's a bunch of resumes!).
See link below for details:
Careerbuilder.com Resume Database Subscription Fees