The black market in CVs

For many reputable job boards the raw material of their success is the candidate registration, the candidate application and the candidate CV.  Indeed, after the application, the candidate CV is the single most saleable product for job boards. Recruitment agents and, increasingly, employers will pay a pretty penny for relevant quality CV’s.

I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that candidates know and accept that their CV’s (and the personal information that they contain) are being released by job boards to recruiters and employers. Most of them sign up to do this.  And I don’t think candidates would object in any way to job boards charging recruiters a fee to view or use their CV’s. If it helps in their finding a job then it’s probably acceptable to candidates. Indeed, anything that helps candidates in their job hunt would likely be a welcome service.

However, there are a number of CV services which trade in candidate CV’s. These services work by getting candidates to upload their CV’s and then sell them. But the issue is how and where they are being sold.

For example, we have heard whisperings that CV’s can be bought in order to quickly populate a recruitment website with CV’s. Typically, a new job board will want to get CV’s onto its database quickly. Rather than getting candidates to upload their CV’s onto their own site, a job board simply buys CV’s from these CV database services and then put them in their database as if they had “registered.”

It’s hard to establish the legality of this behaviour; and it’s legally difficult to distinguish between what job boards do and what these CV resellers do. But there is little doubt that it would make most people uncomfortable to learn that their CV’s were being bought and sold in this way.

Somehow, I don’t think candidates would be so willing to upload their CV if they really knew and understood that it was going to be resold to other unspecified persons. Who is buying the CV? Is it a recruiter? Is it another job board? If another job board buys that CV, has it received the permission of the candidate to then sell the information again? And what if the CV is sold to somebody utterly unrelated to recruitment? There are obvious dangers here.

The truth is that few candidates will know that this is what might be happening to their CV. These CV services may say that the information is contained in their terms but that doesn’t necessarily make it right, legal or ethical.

Trying to get clear statements from job boards on this whole area is, to say the least, difficult. In talking to anybody about this particular business one is struck both both the uncertainty and the secrecy surrounding what is done. Silence and evasion are seldom signs of good and ethical business.

For candidates it must be a case of be warned. Sadly, there are very dubious operators out there. If job boards are to protect their industry, they must operate in a transparent and trustworthy manner. The practice of buying and selling CV in an effective black market seems like something that should not be tolerated by reputable job boards.