Posted on 03/20/2012 7:18:33 AM PDT by bjorn14
When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.
Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn’t see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.
Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn’t want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
>> Is it legal to discriminate against someone in a job based on what is on Facebook?
Is it legal to discriminate in hiring based on a candidate’s persona? Sure it is. Show me the law that says you HAVE to hire jerks, profane individuals, promiscuous individuals, party-boys and party-girls who will be hungover every morning, weirdos with strange cult beliefs, etc.
What a candidate posts on facebook, tweets, etc. is part of that persona.
Note that the OP isn’t about someone being “discriminated against” for their posts once they were hired (that may well be unlawful). It’s about vetting them DURING the hiring process. It’s hugely important these days to vet any and every way you can, because once you hire them you are sort of stuck with them.
HR, El Diablo.
Name of company doing the interviewing?
Totally agree.
Some company is going to get slapped down so hard on this, the first time a good lawyer represents a 50-something lesbian minority applicant unhappy about this, they’ll rue the day they asked.
(trying to include all the protected groups, who could use this in court)
Me either. I don’t tweet either. The gov’mint has enough info on me without me just handing it out freely on the stinking internet.
I agree. I haven’t interviewed people for about five years now, but at that time it was illegal to ask any question not directly related to the job it self. One wonders how an HR person could justify the question if challenged.
As Thomas Sowell has said, numerous times -
making it hard to fire people makes it hard to HIRE people.
Me neither. It's none of anyone elses business what I'm doing with my life. If I want to chat about it, I'll call or visit. We had one for family only, but other people kept trying to get in, too, simply because they knew someone who knew someone else. It was a real hassle.
The kids today know everything there is to know about everyone else, and that's turned out to be a dangerous game. It's socialism at it's worst. One kid says something bad about another on Facebook, and one of them ends up dead or their life is socially destroyed.
It's NOT cool! People take it all too seriously.
My daughter’s prospective employer recently asked her for a copy of last year’s W2. She’s come to find out it’s getting to be standard practice because past employers can no longer give out any info on the ex-employee except the fact that they worked there and the prospective employer has to find out by other means if they are being given accurate information about past performance and earnings.
>> So if I made a joke to a friend on my off time, you think you have a right to know that as the employer?
No, of course as a potential employer I don’t have that *right*. I can request to know it, though, and once known, I can use the information to make a hiring decision.
In turn, as a potential employee, you dont’ have a *right* to be hired. If you want a job with me, you must agree to let me look closely at you. If you decide that’s too big a burden you are welcome to hit the bricks.
Hiring is an agreement entered into voluntarily by each party.
I’ll note — again — that this is NOT about an employer prying into the facebook of an existing employee. It’s about vetting an individual that VOLUNTARILY walked in the door requesting a job.
HR is populated with people who couldn't make it in government.
I don’t have one either. What happens when this becomes a disadvantage in getting a job, or other security screening.
People who don’t have a Facebook account will just have to look for a job elsewhere. What people COULD do is open an account and just not do anything with it.
Why not just manage a sanitized version of your Facebook account, without the drunken bash pics and Obama-as-witch-doctor posts? This will likely also spell the end for Facebook as a place of open and honest exposure to family and friends.
Wow. You must be in some secret squirrel thing. The Navy specifically is using Facebook to get information out to the masses. Many in the leadership have an account to give out their views and info.
What is both rage inducing and pathetically sad is that these flunkies hold tremendous sway as to whether you get hired or not.
I have more respect for drug dealers and pimps (both earth and non-Earth varieties) than I do for HR “recruiters”.
*I'll assume that there are 1 or 2 HR-types out there that are competent, but the remaining 99.999999999999998% are worthless.
I’d tell the inquisitive employer that my private profile contained information about other potential employers that would be unethical to share.
I would pointedly refuse, noting that I’m not in the habit of violating password security regardless of the supposed “authority” behind a request, and that I sincerely hope this was a test of my ability to avoid a social engineering attack.
I understand your point, but soon enough someone is going to get sued big time.
Would you hand over your Facebook username and password to a prospective employee? He wants to know about you before committing to the job, after all.
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