Monster - ous.com!

Most of you will be at least familiar with Monster.com, the job search site, they that promise the earth and deliver, or at least in my case, barely much more than advertising!

That of course maybe for various reasons but in the year I have had my details with them I have been wholly underwhelmed and information given to me this week only proved to seriously underwhelmed me further.

Whilst at an interview at the job center on Thursday I happened to mention that I had (had being the operative word here) an account with Monster, C.V's, profile, the lot. The guy looked at me in horror and told me to go home and delete it straight away, this seemed like something of an odd instruction from a government department who's sole aim is to get me into work, so I questioned further.

Apparently Monster have been hacked, twice in the last few months and with rumours of a very recent third breach, this has rendered literally millions of individuals personal details at risk and in the hands of heaven knows who!!

If that wasn't bad enough, and I accept these things happen, Monster took an active decision not to inform it's members and instead merely chose to prompt them to change their password on the next occasion they logged in. For me, who had long since decided Monster was pretty much useless in my case, that means my details, including my full C.V have been 'out there' for months!!

Had they advertised the fact that they had a problem immediately and taken steps to rectify it and been upfront, I would have been far more convinced of their integrity than I am in knowing that they instead chose to attempt to hide the issue, presumably purely for corporate gain, and thereby knowingly risked their clients security more than was necessary!

Maybe I should have been aware of all of this, let's face it, I spend enough time in the interweb, but I wasn't and the very fact that Monster themselves chose not to inform those affected is what really angers me.

My account is now firmly deleted I can promise you. If a government department, who's sole purpose is to encourage me to find a position any way I can urge me so strongly to kill it immediately, then it speaks volumes about Monster and it's codes of practice!

If you have an account with Monster I can only suggest you don't have from this point on!