Secret job hunting

Email perils

The number one rule is to never, ever use your company email for anything job-seeking related. Apart from being an abuse of most companies' email policies, it's just stupid, and could see you losing your current job. Remember that your company mail is rarely private: most systems are regularly monitored and filtered by IT departments. Get a Gmail account, or use your private ISP account at home.

Secret surfing

The second rule is to remember that most sites you visit at work are monitored. Even if you're surfing in your own time - such as during your lunch hour, or after work - your company can track the sites you visit. If you were already on dodgy ground - or even in line for a promotion - your boss might think rather hard about things if numerous hits for Monster.com or Seek.com show up on a routine activity audit.

CV subtlety

The third rule is never to write your CV on a company computer. Even if you delete it (and most people forget to do that, let alone empty their computer Trash) there will be numerous records of what you were doing. Temporary caches may hold recoverable copies of the actual document. Even if deleted, the Recent Files list will show entries for Gary_CV.doc or JR_reusme.txt. Try creating a sample document one day with a unique name, deleting it, then searching for it. Traces of it will be all over your computer, just like a murderer's DNA at the crime scene.

Private phone calls

The fourth rule is phone calls. Most prospective employers should be sensitive to the fact that people can't take interview calls at work, so don't give out your work number in the first place. Because quite apart from the fact that people can hear you, it's very easy to tap someone's phone if you have any suspicions about them (or if you're just a regular, tin-foil-hat-paranoid boss). Give them your home number, or your mobile number. And if it's a company mobile with itemised bills, remember never to call the prospective employers back.

Mysterious messaging

The fifth rule: messaging. If you must discuss your job hunting with a colleague (rarely a good idea - it just gives them ammunition if you're both up for promotion) then don't do it over company email, or instant messaging systems. MSN, Google Talk, AIM and others can all be monitored in numerous ways, even if you're geeky enough to have disabled log-saving.

Fax faux-pas

The sixth rule covers probably the most dangerous thing of all: faxing your CV or application letter, or even more risky - having them fax you an application form. Never has there been a device causing more office embarrassment than the fax machine. How often do people forget to remove documents - even passports and credit cards - from the scanner, only to have a colleague return them with an unpleasant snigger over their unflattering ID card photo? Worst of all are those revealing little status slips that faxes constantly spit out: do you want to have to explain why you sent a four-page fax to RivalCorp?

Because at the end of the day, you might not get that job. And the last thing you want is to be left working for an employer who not only knows your heart is no longer in the job, but that you're clueless when it comes to technology. Or explaining to prospective employers that the reason you're currently unemployed is because you were such a brainless, unsubtle moron in your last job.