Staff-leasing company "steals" my resumé; should I let them get away with it?
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There's a staff leasing company promoting its services by showing off the resume of someone who does not work for it. Do the actual contractors have similar skill sets? If so, why aren't they using their resumes?
There's something pretty unethical about marketing one level of talent and delivering a lower level.
A future hiring manager might find this copied/stolen resume, and presume that the OP had copied the staff leasing company's "master programmer"'s resume. Instead of the other way 'round!
It's highly likely that my "problem" has one clear course of action; but for someone who's been out-of-it for a while due to the pressures that come with having been out of work for over four months now, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it.
If it does harm you, send them a cease&desist letter, based on your authorship of this text. Ask to remove the text from the website, and suggest further discussion.
Aside of that, consider negotiating some licencing fees for past and (if applicable) future use of the document. They may try to disclaim responsibility, blaming honest mistake of a random employee, but that not necessarily absolves any responsibility.
In any case, ask them to attach credit where it is due -- perhaps link to your personal website?
Mostly, I'm interested in stories of others who've been in similar situations. Also, your suggestion implies enlisting the help of a lawyer; if so, I'd really rather have other options, since I don't have the... er, required financial capacity to do that at the moment. (Plus, is it even worth it to involve lawyers in something like this?)
Agency got my resume, sent it to a company un-authorized. At at about the same time a peer was sending that manager my resume.
I lost out on what may have been a pretty good position, forever barred from that company.
I didn't do anything, couldn't. They wouldn't tell me who the agency was, other than it wasn't the one I had been dealing with.
That was a decade ago. I don't know what I'd do now: maybe write a polite blog post about it, so if someone googled my name they'd have my side of the story.
Evidently they never expected for the use of your resume to come to light.
They obviously want to use it! Why not drop them a mail and say you've seen that they're using it. Advise them of their 'choices', if they want to continue using it they need to add a disclaimer to confirm they have not hired you, also include details of your (very large) fee for continued use.
Alternatively they can remove it and just pay a reduced fee for the time they have used it so far. After all, they have no affiliation with you - they are just using it as 'artwork' for which you should be paid.
I'd make sure the first contact with them is civil. they'll probably be sneaky & just take it down but you never know, taking the official route & spelling it out for them might produce benefits!
If they don't comply, you can always take it further. You can even say you approached them reasonably!
Also, I'm from the Philippines, where the legal system isn't exactly amenable to small claims such as this. And, in any case, I don't really have the financial means to pursue this in court (not that I want to).
Maybe this cloud has a silver lining? Pardon the cliche. ;)
The fogeys come in afterwards, to clean up the mess (if we're lucky).
But, while it'd be nice to get offers because of this, I'm more interested in the lessons. Plus, I suppose there's a feeling of betrayal, because, as I mentioned earlier, I know one of the people running the company. (To get this out of the way, there are reasons, which I can't discuss, as to why I can't simply walk up to them and tell them to either pay up or take my resumé down.)
Ask them to stop and then get over it. They probably didn't even expect anybody would care because it's just not that big of a deal.
Years ago, a friend called, said they had an opening and would I like to send him my resume. I did. He sent it to his manager.
A week later his manager told him that their contracting agency had already sent him my resume. And that for contractual reasons with that agency he could not consider me.
Now, I'd never even heard of this contracting agency, let alone sent them my resume. But I had dealt with other agencies, and copies of my res were on web sites.
I've always assumed they captured it from the web, or a scuzzy rep fled to a new agency with a long list of resumes on CD.