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In the right hand column of my SO Careers CV page, there is a blue box which states that my Public CV is part of "A free Stack Overflow service".
It's not. I paid good money to list my CV on SO Careers and I don't want a recruiter who is unfamiliar with the SO Careers business model lumping me in with everyone who did not pay to list their CV. I'm not asking for a badge that says I paid, I would just like the misleading statement removed from the listing that I paid for.
But it's true -- the public CV page is free.
The private CV page that employers see through their private search interface is not the same as the public CV page (it has more information and other features) -- and that is not free, nor is it tagged as such.
Remember, you pay a nominal yearly fee to file your CV which makes your CV visible in the private CV search engine. This doesn't have much to do with the public CV except that some of the information on the CV is similar, depending on what sections of the CV you've marked as public-visible.
To clarify: we can't have any indication on the free public CVs that the user has paid to file, and be listed for private employer search. Doing so would "out" anyone that has a public CV and happens to be looking for work. Their current employers would be able to tell (by the absence of the "free public CV" tag) that they are not happy with their current job and seeking other employment.
The free public CVs and paid private employer search are two different worlds, and bridging them in the manner you are describing would destroy both.
I am sorry, but if this is a problem for anyone, please email [email protected] and we'll be more than happy to refund your money in full.
The reason for that box is to encourage other people to sign up for their own public CV.
It's also there to tell you that careers.stackoverflow.com is part of a larger website.
It might not be a bad idea to point out that while the public CV is free service, this particular user is also listed on SO careers and the private CV there gives more information.
Jeff raises a valid and important point in the comments. A way of dealing with that is to provide a checkbox in the edit view to enable a one line note on the public CV indicating that this user is listed on SO Careers while keeping the PUBLIC CV A free Stack Overflow service message.
This way, if a subscriber elects not to check the box, her public CV would be no different than any other user's.
I do not think this is an important feature.
