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If a user doesn't want their current employer to know that they're keeping their ears open on the job market, when filling out their CV it's not clear at all what potential hiring managers will see when browsing the profiles.

Will ones employer be able to see names if casually surfing the site? Will the see other information? And does a potential employer need to get behind the paywall before seeing profiles, or can anyone see them?

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does a potential employer need to get behind the paywall before seeing profiles

Yes! No payment, no viewing of details for employers. They can do trial searches and see preview counts of results but no actual user details. And believe me, they pay .. uh .. a lot for the privilege of viewing actual user information, so this is not something that should happen casually.

Will ones employer be able to see names if casually surfing the site? Will the see other information?

No, they must pay the (much!) higher employer subscription rate first.

Now, if you have paid to file a Stack Overflow Careers CV, and your employer just happens to sign up for a paid Stack Overflow Careers employer account, too .. then yes, they'd be able to find you. It's sort of a catch-22 but I don't know how to get around that, since the same problem exists on every other job site that I can think of..

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    Re "the same problem" - I'm not sure it does; most seem to be the applicant choosing from potential employers. Often the employer names aren't given, but if they see something that sounds remarkably like their employer (same location, same technology, etc) - then they simply don't apply.
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 20:35
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    How much will this cost employers?
    – user27414
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 20:37
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    Isn't this a check on candidate->employer != employer->name? Granted, I haven't visited the careers site yet.
    – Brian Barnes
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 20:39
  • @Brian: they could do that, but it would be far from perfect. How would you handle slight differences in names?
    – Joel Coehoorn
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 21:10
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    That's why your posting your CV not your resume! An employer shouldn't be upset you have your CV up, or at least you could spin it like that.
    – Michael Pryor
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 21:35
  • @Joel - Some sort of auto complete could work (I'd suggest that it's only done on the candidate side), but it still has the issue of a candidate miss-spelling, then the employer signing up with the correct spelling (it could also lead to either large js files or more http requests, depending on how it is implemented).
    – Brian Barnes
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 22:03
  • @Brian: It already has an auto completition feature, I noticed when I filled out the details of my educational history that it auto-offered the name of my school after the first few characters.
    – Tamas Czinege
    Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 22:47
  • @DrJokepu, yes that works for schools, but if the employer name auto-completes, that can only mean that someone else has already entered it - so the employer will be suspicious anyway ;)
    – Benjol
    Commented Oct 8, 2009 at 7:16
  • @Michael: If CV is something "far more comprehensive" than resume (Wikipedia), how should that not upset an employer if a resume does? Careers front page seems to use the terms pretty much interchangeably: "Unlike traditional resumes, a Stack Overflow CV gives..." You can try to spin it like that, sure, but I'm not sure who would buy that...
    – Jonik
    Commented Oct 8, 2009 at 14:23
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    How about hide my results from employers whose name match "Fog*"
    – Bob
    Commented Oct 8, 2009 at 15:57
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    @Bob The problem wit that is that if you work in the Fog Industry and are currently employed by FogStreet, what happens when FogWorld comes knocking? You've just knocked out a potential employer because their name is similar.
    – baudtack
    Commented Oct 8, 2009 at 16:24
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    @docgnome - Well, then we just make it a regex. I can't wait for the flood of employer-name-regex questions that will spawn on SO... ;)
    – retracile
    Commented Oct 9, 2009 at 20:30

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