I had a somewhat contentious Twitter conversation this morning with a job seeker who posted his resume on a service called Emmurse and asked the Twitterverse to spread the word. The resume was missing any contact information, under the guise of “privacy protection”. I commented that this was a mistake, as there was no way for potential employers to easily contact him. His reply was that this was fine because he would be the one referring employers to the resume, in which case they already had his contact information, and besides, he didn’t want his information roaming free.
I believe this is a HUGE mistake. Your information should be roaming free, if you choose to distribute it on the Internet. Many sites (including Emmurse) are searchable, which means that employers to whom you did not refer your resume may find it. If your contact information is missing, or you make them click three extra links to find it, you’re inviting them to keep looking. Furthermore, this job seeker asked Twitter to publicize his resume. If you are using social media to expand your network (and you should!), then you won’t be personally introducing it.
Thus, your resume needs to have some contact information on it. The question is how much? We generally avoid listing addresses on a resume for a variety of reasons – perhaps a future blog post. When we write resumes for customers, we include a single telephone number and an email address. The little bit of privacy you trade is well worth the visibility and ease of contact for potential employers.
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