I wish EVERY employer would do this. Why? Because my family life and stability is one of my strengths, and my Facebook page only proves that. Now I’ve known plenty of people throughout my working career who has the home life of a drunken deadbeat Dad tenfold, but with first impressions would probably have the BS skills to do better at an initial interview than I would.
Because if you knew some of these people like I know them, you wouldn’t let them in the door.
Most employers don’t like you talking about family or what your core principles are in a job interview. They just want to know if you can do the job.
Core principles…Why isn’t this important, it’s important to me, why not anyone else?
>> Core principles…Why isn’t this important, it’s important to me, why not anyone else?
Core principles are quite important to an enlightened employer. They’re the one thing that cannot be taught. Core principles are often the difference between an employee who stays a year and one who stays a couple decades.
However, they’re also easy to fake at interview time... and so most employers take attempts by employees to emphasize them with a grain of salt. Thirty years or so it was common practice to mention your church, your civic organizations, your spouse and kids on your resume. That’s fallen out of favor.
This is why the Facebook look is so interesting — presumably it gets at the individual’s REAL persona without the “resume theatre” fakery that both sides expect. However, as other posters have already pointed out, the social media persona is subject to being gamed in the same way as a resume can be. Therefore, it’s a temporary employer advantage at best.
I’ll note that a really skilled hiring manager (or better, hiring team) can pretty well tease out a candidate’s true personality without needing passwords or record searches. I got to be fairly good at this — maybe B-/C+ level — but I saw others who were much better than I. In my career I have hired primarily college-trained programmers, engineers, and managers, up through exec staff level. I am sure that hiring in other industries and at other levels is different and I am happy not to be doing it.
Proper hiring is a grueling and time-consuming process for a business, and the stakes are very high — TOO high NOT to put in the required effort.
FRegards