Comoto – How should you handle CV Privacy versus getting a new Job

Comoto Newsletters

This newsletter is all about how you should handle your CV Privacy versus getting a new Job – what should be considered to avoid risks like identity theft, cyber stalking, scams and other misuse of your CV information.

Last week on the Comoto’s blog we received a complete CV as a blog post with personal data, detailed private information and phone and other private numbers

My first thought was rather negative – but then I started to consider that in a world with more than 200 million unemployed, you might decide to take all risks in the hope of a job and instead I decided to help! Therefore, I have compiled the following advice on how you could handle your privacy issues and on our blog you can find an article with general advice for you to consider – reading more here.

CV privacy
What needs to be done!

As part of your CV Creating, Managing and Optimizing you should always consider which details you should include and/or show in your CVs (in Comoto this is easier, you have detailed control on both). Please read more here, if you should include among other your full address, phone numbers and also how to use a correct email address.

Remember that one of the many strong points on Comoto is the ability to handle both multiple CVs and Web online profiles – therefore, on Comoto you can have different approaches to CVs – CVs with full details, some CVs with limited details and CVs or Resumes with only few private details to be used in the public (web) space. Comoto also makes it possible to control the access to your web profile with a password.

The level of details in a CV can be handled in two different ways on Comoto – You can either make a copy (clone) of your current CV and remove certain parts or you can manage the visibility with on/off switches with the red/green buttons – see the picture

Why should you care about what you show ! Is this important ?

A few statistics and related information on identity theft

It is expected as many as 10 million Americans a year are victims of identity theft. The United States Department of Justice states that in 2010, 7% of all United States households had at least one member of the family at or over the age of 12 who has been a victim of some sort of identity theft. As many other issues this is now spreading all over the world – consider this happened for you! (read more here).

But what can happen if your identity has been stolen!

  • 47% of victims had trouble getting credit or a loan as a result of identity theft
  • 19% of victims had higher credit rates and 16% had higher insurance rates because of identity theft
  • 11% of victims say identity theft has a negative impact on their abilities to get a job
  • 70% of victims have trouble getting rid of (or never get rid of) negative information in their records

You can find out more about identity theft and how to handle it here.

Similar precautions to which information you show in your CVs/Resumes should be considered when you publish or share/send CV information or update your CV/Web profile.

Carefully consider if there are there any information that could harm you or somebody else – read more about the correct levels of details in your CV here and read more about the correct time to update your CV/Resume here

Now you properly have made the appropriate number of CVs – worked with the CV Data and the layout (template) and you are ready to start using the CV – you have taken the correct precautions, considered the proper information for each CV and are ready to share it with everybody in the world – or are you ?

I am afraid there are way too many job scams, fake jobs and bogus recruiters and suspicious CV databases (see our evaluation here) out there you should consider first. I have collected some relevant information and tips for you here

Your Privacy is important for Comoto

Remember, at Comoto we regard our user’s privacy very high and give you numerous options and features to help you handle your CVs/Resumes privacy – like you can have many CVs – for example (and remember the CV Data can be intelligently linked for easy updates). For example

  • One CV without many details that can be broadly used
  • Another CV with more details for X, targeted for a specific job type
  • And one made for your current employers file (to illustrate you can build your CV history/log on Comoto)

You can have many web profiles – for example

  • One or more profiles with very little details for public access – see here what to include and not to include
  • Other CVs with little differences – yes why not have several – each made with a different password

The Comoto CV Manager also ensures your privacy

  • All access to your information in password protected (remember to have a strong password – here)
  • All information on the Comoto CV Manager application is secured (try here)

In the next version – which we are working hard to finish – we will be adding further features for you to be in full control of your CV/Resume privacy and risks involved in the management of your CV/Resume.

Thanks for your time – comments and suggestions will be highly appreciated
Kren, CEO

It’s all over the news that Armstrong lied – but actually 46 % CV lies or false information in their CV/Resume a recent study shows!

Comoto Newsletters

Lance Armstrong lied do you? – NO…
It’s all over the news that Armstrong lied – but actually 46% have lies or false information in their CV/Resume a recent study shows. Read below on how not to be regarded as a liar in your CV/Resume! Lance Armstrong’s many years of lying have put focus on lies as well as incorrect information from famous people once again. Quite similar to the focus the now former CEO of Yahoo had when he lied in in his CV some time ago – (see here).

Study shows 46% “errors” in CV/Resume.
As mentioned, a recent study showed that 46% of the CVs/Resumes submitted by job applicants contained some kind of false information. It also showed that 21% state fraudulent degrees, 29% have altered wrong employment dates, 40% have inflated their current salary terms, 33% are using inaccurate job descriptions and 27% used false references. At Comoto, we are surprised but not chocked as other surveys and studies have shown similar levels of fraudulent behavior. Actually, I still remember that one fact from a UK study that really surprised me – that the female rate of whom that use fraudulent information is higher than male!

Anonymous Survey
With these high percentages it would be interesting with further studies of this – including one missing though important factor that to needs be measured: the rate of applicants whom by purpose omit important but negative facts or information. Therefore, we would like to survey our users in general (anonymously off course) about lies in their CVs/Resumes and for this purpose we have constructed a small survey – please attend the survey here: http://comoto.questionpro.com

Comoto can help
At Comoto we believe in keeping the truth and do whatever we can to reduce this bad behavior – and remember when fraudulent behavior is discovered in a CV/Resume it normally results in very serious consequences for the person – one example is the – yes, now former – CEO of Yahoo – an outcome which everybody who is taking the easy road should consider as well as the implications for his/her further career, if any further career. For an employer it is equally bad and the consequences on the employer’s professionalism, brand and ethical standards can be widespread therefore every employer should do their homework and for example check references and documentations. For you as an applicant there is not anything more annoying than losing in a job process for that a particular job to someone you later learned was dishonest!

Guide to a better CV/Resume
At Comoto, we believe that keeping some of our overall guiding principles helps always help finding the right person (and right for both the application and the company) – for example

  • Have a full CV/Resume not just a public profile to ensure a detailed precise evaluation basis

A applicant is it important to make sure you don’t send the wrong signals hereby increasing the likelihood that somebody reading your CV/Resume regards you as omitting false information or worse (lying!)

  • Make sure your CV/Resume always is fully updated (easy on Comoto for now and in the new version we kick a…)
  • Make sure your CV/Resume and other public information is consistent – it is OK with differences in level of details (use a remark). Another reason for not only having one but having several CVs/Resumes (and intelligent linked data like on Comoto)
  • Try searching yourself and read it together with your CV/Resume with the eyes of a recruiter – any red lights or can any text be misunderstood?

Verification Feature
Comoto launched the CV/Resume verification feature (see here) to offer our users tools for improving their CV/Resume quality hereby helping our users in getting that particular job they want.Comoto Verify

The verification system can be found on the page for your Web-profile in the Comoto CV Manager (see here)

The principle behind the CV/Resume verification tools is that you can ask a former boss or colleague to verify (confirm) that the particular text you use in your CV/Resume for a past job, education or…is correct also in their opinion. An example is shown to the left.

Comoto VerifyYour CV/Resume – in your public/password protected Web-profile will then show, that this information has been verified by a specific person.

You manage the verification and decide if you want to show the verification on your public or password protected Web-profile.

 

 

 

 

 

Comoto VerifyIf you choose so it can be seen publicly on your Web-profile like the example to the right.

If you want to read more about the verification feature here or if you want to test it on your CV/Resume log in here and go to your Web-profile.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your time – comments and suggestions will be appreciated

Kren, CEO

CV/Resume Study:
As mentioned, a recent study showed that 46% of the CV/Resumes submitted by job applicants contained some kind of false information. If you want further details on the recent study – go here.

Honesty is a virtue
Earlier as part of our CV Funny blog we have shown an example of full details in a CV/Resume – it is rather
funny – go here

Season Greetings from Comoto

As the holidays are approaching and 2012 comes to a close, I want to thank you for being a part of Comoto. The Comoto team would also like to wish you Happy Holidays and use this opportunity to show you a glimpse of the new version of Comoto that will be launched shortly.

First, I would personally also like to say thanks for all the positive feed backs we receive every day and especially the many suggestions received from all of you – mails ensuring us that there is a strong need for and interest in a CV manager helping and guiding you in creating your CVs/Resumes – and I am sure you will see that many of the suggestions have been added to the new version that we are proud to show you in this and the following newsletters. By the way – if you would like to become a beta tester please email me.

Looking back, it is only a few weeks ago we celebrated our 100 weeks anniversary of the launch of Comoto and we want to celebrate this not only with the new CV Manager application shown below but also with a new look and feel on our main website which in the future will be divided in two different areas – one area for people interested in freely downloadable CV Templates and one area for guidance and help in using our Comoto CV/Resume manager to for you to get the optimal CVs/Resumes.

As we strongly believe that a CV/Resume is not something done once but it is actually an on-going process that should be a planned and managed and we also believe that you should get a new job based on a full well constructed CV/Resume and not just a short profile – we have done our best to ensure that you can easily build multiple intelligent linked full CVs that are easy to manage for each relevant job process. We have spent a lot of time working on how to help you in this process and also how we can guide and help you as much as possible in this process.

In the future we will be using the labels CREATE, OPTIMIZE and MANAGE to ensure you will be guided much better in the process of creation and the handling of your CVs/Resumes.

To make the creation of CV/Resumes even easier for you, we have also added a unique import feature on top of the LinkedIn and Europass import features. But will be able to read much more on this new Import feature in a later Newsletter.

As our CREATE, OPTIMIZE and MANAGE process will ensure you much better CV/Resumes it is of great importance that you can start effectively using your CV/Resumes. This feature we call SHARE – we have and will continue to make it much easier for you to use your CVs/Resumes and keep not only yourself but also the receivers of your CV/Resumes updated. How we can do this is still a secret for a couple of weeks, but look forward to this exciting new feature!

Words or labels does not do it on their own – as mentioned we have been analysing the use of our application and have spent a lot of time improving the help and guidance features.

You will receive extended help functions when you enter a new feature and detailed help as well as mouse over texts, hints and even on page examples when entering a page for the first time. We will also be sending you suggestions for your best next step in your process of getting the optimal CVs/Resumes – but remember that on Comoto you can always decide if you want our guidance or not.

As mentioned above words does not do it on their own – the same saying can be used for your CVs/Resumes – looks and first impressions also matters – therefore, we have reworked our Templates completely, which assures you the highest possible level of freedom and flexibility working with our Templates.

We have made it possible to make a live preview based on your own CV Data Set, before you make it into a file that you want to share with other people, and you can even see them with a lot of interesting CV/Resume examples that we made for you in the new version.

Behind this change is actually a collection of new technologies which makes the Templates much more dynamic and also editable. You can in the new version use a Template as it is or make it your own by changing for instance colour schemes, font types as well as other details. Your own Template can then be used on all CVs/Resumes you have in the application or you can make one Template for each CV/Resume you have.
If that is not enough and you want more flexibility you can now EDIT your final CVs/Resumes in Comoto. More info on this exciting new feature will follow in in one of the coming newsletters.

I hope this has shown you a glimpse of the exiting new things that will happen with Comoto and we are looking forward to an even more exciting 2013 helping you CREATE, OPTIMIZE, MANAGE and SHARE your CVs/Resumes.

Seasonal Greetings and best wishes for the new year from

Kren, Ceo of Comoto and The Comoto Team