Like most people, regardless of the level of love for their work and employer, I typically leave my resume exposed in various locations across the vast interwebs.  Subsequently, I will update the data within the resume at various intervals throughout the year to keep it up-to-date with my latest activities and accomplishments. Some of these sites I use for networking, some I use for business information, others I simply just let my resume sit out as bait, and one particular site will likely never again get my endorsement.

Websites like LinkedIn are great… I am actively involved in numerous communities and I use the site a couple of times a day in order to keep tabs on my network, see what my peers are involved in and how they are enriching their business networks and professional opportunities.

Other sites like TheLadders assist in keeping an eye of the job market and to understand what companies may be looking for in their candidates.

Then there are Careerbuilder and Monster.com, both of which I am not a fan of, but feel that they are a necessary evil.  I recently updated my information on Careerbuilder and it actually was painless. Updated the resume, it was searched more often and that is that – pretty indifferent.  Now Monster is a different animal… Actually “monster” might be an appropos name for the company.  Within hours of updating my information, my inbox became innundated with spam and career “opportunities.”  One would think that Monster would have resolved those problems in all these years, but alas, it has not gotten any better.

Now, while I can easily manage the spam (there are solutions), the issue is the originating delivery and Monster’s complacency in trying to curb these MLM schemes – yes, 98% of the emails I receive are exactly that.  The key to the issue is that it is not just me – I have heard firsthand from others that have been a party to this and a simple search brings up fraud, scams, theft and misuse of email lists and more piggybacking on a job search service that has become any but that.

So, until Monster can solve this problem, I will be removing my information from the site.

Have you had a better experience with Monster.com?