Job seekers protected from identity theft

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 3, 2003

Casually dropping your personal information on a few job websites could be the reason you have 15 new unwanted e-mails in your inbox every morning.

Casually dropping your personal information on a few job websites could be the reason you have 15 new unwanted e-mails in your inbox every morning.

It might be why you're getting some annoying phone calls.

Even worse, it could cause you something as serious as identity or credit card theft.

When the Associated Press recently reported that Monster.com sent e-mails to its website users, warning them that identity thieves post false job advertisements in order to illegally collect users' personal information, it appeared to be the first time one of the big job sites directly addressed job hunters about the potential for this type of crime.

But with today's job market as tight as it is, people are throwing caution to the wind and exercising every option to latch on to a promising new career.

It's a growing concern.

So what are jobs websites doing to keep people's information safe? EPCglobal, an international recruitment and staffing-solutions firm focused solely on the engineering and construction industries, doesn't let just anyone access its website for job seekers and hiring managers, EPCjobs.com.

"We control who comes to our website", says EPCglobal Technical Product Manager Brandon Gallagher.

"It's not a typical job board, where anyone with a credit card can open an account on their own and figure out the site themselves.

It's necessary to set up your account through our client services team, and then our technology department sets up the service for you".

To protect its candidates and its database, client companies cannot hire people without EPCglobal being involved.

Gallagher says that EPCglobal tries to keep two separate versions of the candidates' information: one with complete information for internal purposes, and one with all the ID information covered - this includes things such as name, address, phone number, e-mail address, etc.

The covered version is shown to potential hiring managers, and job candidates' identities are not revealed until the point of interview - that is, of course, with the candidates' written consent.

Candidates must give EPCglobal permission to reveal any contact or identification information up front before it is shown - this is written into the EPCjobs.com website terms and conditions.

On the flip side, EPCglobal protects its hiring managers from contact by job candidates.

Only the hiring manager's name is made visible with each job opening; no other information about that person - such as phone number or e-mail address - is included.

Again, only with the hiring manager's consent will a job candidate be given contact information or permission to call or email that hiring manager.

In addition to operating in the USA, EPCglobal conducts business in the UK, where data privacy is covered by the Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003.

Companies that obtain individuals' personal information must inform these people of : their identity, their purpose for keeping the data, and any other information that they need to provide so that their handling of this data is "fair".

EPCglobal shields candidates' personal information from UK hiring managers until the point of interview the same way they do in the USA, keeping two versions of the candidates' information on file.

Gallagher says because of the Data Protection Act, and the way UK CVs are written, the process for removing personal information from UK CVs is more time consuming than in the USA, as people in the UK tend to include such information as marital status and number of children - these are things Americans don't include on resumes and hiring managers do not seek due to potential discrimination issues.

EPCglobal has future plans for enhancing the protection of candidates even further.

Functionality in development for future releases of EPCjobs.com will enable currently employed candidates to remain anonymous while on their job searches.