Inside the PRWeek e-mail snafu

How did the experts handle their own PR crisis?

The e-mail, from PRWeekJobs, begged me to “Upload Your Resume at the New PRWeekjobs.com for a Chance to win an iPod.”

I ignored it at first, but when the e-mail arrived a fifth time, I had to open it, if only to see why they’d sent it so many times. Clearly, there’d been some kind of screw up.

I had no idea how big that screw up would turn out to be.

To read the e-mail, I had to scroll down past what seemed like thousands of e-mail addresses— addresses that should have been in the bcc line. Finally, I got to the text, which read:

“Dear Job Seeker, A new enhanced PRWeekJobs site is re-launching in February. As an existing user of PRWeekJobs we would therefore urge you to upload your resume immediately at prweekus.com/ipod using the following account details…”

The “account details” were my personal e-mail address and PRWeekJobs.com password, sent to untold masses on the distribution list. And that password is – or should I say was – my very favorite password; the one I used on almost all of my online accounts.