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Hello readers, welcome to weekend chit-chat. I was at a friend’s place last night and the conversation flowed towards social media. Somebody mentioned that companies are checking potential hire’s Facebook profile before the job offer. I was not so sure about it and decided to give it a check.
This morning Google directed me to a post in PC world, where CareerBuilder.com revealed some number. 20% of companies admitted checking Facebook/MySpace profiles. And the number of rejection is more than number of acceptance, 33% vs 24%.
“Use of drugs or drinking and the posting of photographs deemed ‘inappropriate’ or ‘provocative’ were identified as the most popular reasons why employers eliminated a candidate after viewing their social networking profile.” ~ Mentioned by PC World.
Earlier I listed a few tips towards getting a job through social media. But, this one looks like “Losing a job because of social media”.
Here’s the list of reasons for hiring and not hiring based on social media profile, published in a CareerBuilder survey.
I quickly checked my Facebook profile once again, scrutinized my wall. Nah, there’s no picture of me drinking and dancing wild. I didn’t post any offensive comment on my wall or on anybody’s wall. My qualification on Facebook, LinkedIn and resume are matching as well.
One question though, how companies are getting hold of job applicant’s social profile? I heard that Facebook user id and passwords are being asked at many places, even in schools. I suppose these employer’s also doing the same practice.
A practice which Facebook seems uncomfortable with. You are giving out your social media profile to someone because you need a job or you need an education degree. Kind of blackmailing. You probably are signing a consent for this.
You are probably not willing and comfortable, at least I won’t be. It’s our private world. Even if I get hired, I will still be uncomfortable that my employer knows about my private social life. All employers are not equal and all bosses are not the same. Exploitation is a possibility here.
And, what about the privacy of your friends? Getting your user id does also mean getting some very private information about your friends, isn’t it? Remember your Facebook friends are not giving you their consent! A case which Facebook is more concerned about.
It will be interesting to see the legal battle going forward. So what do you think, is this a good idea on an employer’s part?
Also, this question goes to the employers who check applicant’s online profile, do you think that everyone maintains online profile like the way they maintain offline profile? I see wise quotes, links and comments from very dumb people all the time.
And one last tip of wisdom, if I may, when you are in the job market, do polish your Facebook profile and remove any potentially objectionable item from it, make it a ritual like updating your résumé.
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I think it is totally okay for employers to look at your public social media profiles – it is public information. I think it crosses the line to make a candidate share their password so that you can see their private information. If it is not public, it is off limits.
Getting login priviledge gives more private data, and reveals your true identity. Actually they require your written consent. So, in court of law its not wrong.
All of my social media profiles are private, but I have actually seen job applications that asked for user names and passwords. That is definitely a violation of privacy. I think companies should have better things to do than worry about what someone does or says on their own time.
I so far heard about it, haven’t seen a job description yet which requires id/password. In future perhaps we should check our partner’s FB profile this way before marriage…what do you say?
Why would they want your Facebook password? Does that mean that some point in the future they will ask to see your your email password, blog password and even your online banking password? That is crazy.
No its generally an onetime need, later you can change your FB password once accepted/rejected for the job. Its now catching up. When employer first started health screening, people cried foul, people is crying foul now. My main fear is fraudsters can impersonate employer and can get access to 1000s of sensitive private data.
I would tell them to screw themselves. They can look at the public profile and that’s it.
I think I’ll follow the suit..but not everyone is same. For many getting a job is far more important than losing some private information.
I think comapanies doing this should be ashamed of themselves. I hope they all get hit with lawsuits for violating federal hiring laws. Asking for a password is a backdoor way to gather protected information about job applicants.
Actually they are getting s signed consent from the applicants, legally they are covered anyway.
I think that if it is public information, then an employer can use that against a potential employee. But, if the potential employee has it set to private, that is another issue. I guess the potential employee could sign a consent form giving the employer permission, but why would you and where would it stop?
Good question, is there anything private? Do you know all you emails are scanned in the name of homeland security?
I was going to say something similar. This issue is starting to cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Sure we can give consent if we want for private information, but how far will consents go? Will we have consents for possible disclosure of everything private and personal? I hope not.
Its a big question, how far the consent go. Point is if 60% of us give consent and 40% don’t, those 40% would lose out.
It always pays to be careful. I always have mine on private and delete anything I don’t like.
I have mine private too. But the point is when your privacy is being taken away by a potential employer.
Just because something is legal, doesn’t mean it is right. I wouldn’t want to work for a company that invades the privacy of their workers like that. Fortunately, I don’t!
100% agree and totally with you here!
There was an article online the other day that talked about this. It appeared to be from Seattle and a man was talking about an interview that he had been to. He said after he answered a few questions, the lady that was interviewing him turned to her computer and asked him to tell her (while they were both sitting there) what his facebook logon ID and password were so that she could logon to his account. He didn’t mention anything about signing a consent.
He did say that he told her no and that he immediately left the interview.
I think that it is ridiculous that employers expect people to release their passwords for anything. There use to be stories years ago that corporations were spying on employees corporate emails. I don’t know if that is still happening, but social media has opened a huge can of worms when it comes to privacy.
The man did the right thing by refusing to give away his password. Its too much and without any written record he can’t even prove that it happened to him. Shame!