Paul's Comments

I have a resume posted on some job sites, and occasionally someone claiming to be a recruiter sends me an e-mail asking me for an updated resume. I do have to worry about whether it is legitimate or if it's some scammer collecting personal information.

If it looks like it's legitimate, I send a standard resume and maybe some writing samples. Which usually gets rid of them, literally; I never hear from them again. Don't know if they are scammers, didn't get the response they wanted and moved on, or just found I didn't fit what their customer wanted and simply never responded again. [Update 1/24/2009] I note I used the word "spammer" in the title, so perhaps at the time I wrote the title I was thinking of someone who is spamming people who might have posted resumes on job websites to collect personal information. Or maybe they just made up the claim that they saw a resume on a site, and presumed a lot of people have posted their resume on various job sites and used it to scam people, I don't know. Oh, what are my criteria for determining if it looks legitimate? Person includes return contact information including a company name, address, USA telephone number, typically in the local area. One thing that's a red flag: anyone who sends me e-mail with an international telephone number for making a response is considered the same as a Nigerian over-invoiced oil contract scammer and their message does get marked as spam, and is file 13'd.) [End Update].

I don't give out personal information beyond name, address and telephone. (Basically, if you did a whois lookup on this domain you could get the same thing.) They don't get salary history or what I'd be looking for, nor do they get personal references. I'll save that for a personal interview, if it goes that far.