Employers screen applicants via sites like Facebook

Parent Cafe
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<p>From MSNBC</p>

<p>"Although many employers are too old to qualify as members of the Facebook Generation, they’re becoming increasingly savvy about using social networking sites in their hiring due diligence. That has both job candidates and human resources professionals debating the ethics and effectiveness of snooping on the Web for the kind of information that may not come up in a job interview. </p>

<p>According to a March survey by Ponemon Institute, a privacy think tank, 35 percent of hiring managers use Google to do online background checks on job candidates, and 23 percent look people up on social networking sites. About one-third of those Web searches lead to rejections, according to the survey.</p>

<p>Social networking sites have gained popularity among hiring managers because of their convenience and a growing anxiety about hiring the right people, researchers say.</p>

<p>Big corporations long have retained professional investigators to check job applicants’ academic degrees, criminal records and credit reports. But until now the cost has deterred the ability of smaller firms to do the same level of checking, said Sue Murphy, a director of National Human Resources Association.</p>

<p>One problem is that there is little to prevent hiring managers from discriminating on the basis of personal information discovered through social Web sites. </p>

<p>“There’s just not much legislation on that yet,” Murphy said. </p>

<p>New college graduates, the most active social networkers, are most likely to be the target of Web research…</p>

<p>biggest users of social networking sites, said Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute. …</p>

<p>Professional services like law and consulting firms also are big users, because companies care about how employees present themselves to clients and look for clues in how applicants present themselves online."
<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20202935/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20202935/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>This story ran in our Sunday paper. I remember thinking of the threads here about this very subjet.</p>

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<p>I think that employers are going to get themselves in trouble by doing this.</p>

<p>Checking a Facebook profile – even the part that is visible to everyone – can reveal things that employers are not supposed to take into account in hiring, such as the person’s age, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, and disabilities. I think that there will eventually be lawsuits in which employers are going to have a hard time proving that they didn’t hire a person because his Facebook profile showed pictures of him smoking marijuana, rather than because it indicated that he is gay and Jewish.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it is that bad. I asked my son and he said, you can wall off your group. Only people in your group can see what you write.</p>

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<p>Savvy employers needn’t mention viewing an applicants’ Facebook. The applicant would have no idea why they were hired.</p>

<p>I don’t know why the place that didn’t hire the “well qualified young feamle psychiatrist” whose Facebook showed several pictures of her taking off her shirt at parties bothered to ask her abuot why she did that. What possible good explanation could there be for posting such pictures, which her patients also could have found?</p>

<p>Most employers simply would send her a rejection letter and hire someone else.</p>

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<p>This topic has been beaten to death. It is easy to hide the bad stuff from anyone you want. Nakedness and drugs wouldn’t be a huge leg up in getting a job, but I have found the facebook pages of most college seniors to be a lot more tame and less alcohol-centered than those of freshman ond sophomores. By the time you are job hunting, the keg stand pics should have sunk out of sight.</p>

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<p>Even the public part of your Facebook profile shows what groups you belong to, and that in itself can reveal a great deal of information about an individual. </p>

<p>For example, if you belong to five Republican political groups and six video game-oriented groups, that says something about you, right? Of course, in that instance, it doesn’t say anything objectionable. But there are also groups where your membership is not such a neutral thing. For example, among the entering freshmen at my daughter’s college, some have joined groups whose names indicate their interest in alcohol or drugs. Their mere membership in these groups may create a bad impression.</p>

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<p>on the other hand, if you join some group that lead to positive impression like youth leadership group, or computer hacking nerds or whatever that would give some benefits too.</p>

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<p>Facebook is a private network. No one can see your page who is not invited to be your friend and in your network. You cannot google yourself onto someones private facebook page. Are you confusing facebook with myspace?</p>

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<p>sure you can TRY and hide stuff on line, but to think that the potential for someone to say, take your picture, and friends have been known to do crappy things, and send that picture anywhere, once it is on the web, it is out there and no taking it back</p>

<p>for instance, if a person was competing for the same job, and was in your group, and you put up at some time questionable stuff, hey, what is to stop your competition from sharing the info, you put it out there</p>

<p>I have told my Ds that NOTHING should be on their facebook that can be questioned, why put ANYTHING in print that can come back and bite you</p>

<p>why do they show the breaking the law in print anyway, dumb dumb dumb</p>

<p>I wouldn’t hire someone who did that just because they were too stupid to know better, not even necessarily for the content alone</p>

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<p>My d has a facebook and I just googled her name…nothing.</p>

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<p>okay, so I think a few of you are confused about facebook. Marian, you can hide your groups if you want to. In fact, you can hide anything you want on facebook. It is very easy to edit your privacy settings so that no one but friends (or the select people you choose) can see all of your information. </p>

<p>Collegemom, you are sorta right. If you have an open profile, then anyone in your network can see your profile, they don’t necessarily have to be a friend. And, I’m not sure if you meant “or” in this sentence: “No one can see your page who is not invited to be your friend and in your network.” As in, no one can see your profile who is not your friend OR in your network. Beause, you can friend anyone in any network, so being a friend and being in the same network aren’t necessary.</p>

<p>And, google won’t show someone’s facebook page. I think only Myspace does that.</p>

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<p>but its is in the ether, and if people can crack into Stanford, and into banks, and into many other sites, if you think, wel, gee, its safe, think again</p>

<p>I don’t understand the thought that its “private” on a public site, that is quite funny actually</p>

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<p>My facebook actually did show up on google, but as soon as I realized this, I changed the privacy setting (which had allowed it to appear by default). It didn’t show the entire profile, but it certainly showed more than I was comfortable with.</p>

<p>Also, the degree to which networking sites can FEEL private (“You can shut this off so only your friends can see it…”) is, I think, rather dangerous and misleading. Even though the info might not be right out in the open, it’s not usually hard to get to. I’ve seen facebook info appear in many magazine, newspaper, news articles, etc., and used against trouble-making or newsworthy kids.</p>

<p>If you don’t have your entire facebook profile set to private, then anyone in your school’s network can view it. This means that if a company has an alum from your school, that person can probably access your profile quite easily. Similarly, if you write anyone a message (or respond to one), the recipient can view your profile for 30 days or so, even if you’re not friends or in the same network. Anyone who can access your profile can take and share a screenshot.</p>

<p>Now, I’m certainly not saying that an employer is actually likely to track down an employee who’s an alum of your school, make that person join facebook and distribute screenshots of your profile, but that isn’t the point. The point, in my eyes, should never be how likely it is that this seemingly private info is accessed or distributed, but should simply be that the info could be accessed or distributed without much trouble, so facebook (or other sites’) users should act accordingly. Period. Because why even risk it?</p>

<p>Poor Rudy Giuliani’s young daughter was all over the news the other day because she had joined a facebook group in support of Obama (apparently before her dad ever officially entered the race). The article included a screenshot of her facebook profile, along with quotes and comments. Yes, granted, this kid is in a unique position, but I’m still guessing that this all came as an unpleasant surprise to her. A year or two ago, when those kids went on a church-burning run, “People” magazine quoted one of the boys’ facebook interests, which he had obviously written in jest, as evidence of his unstable character. Badjocks.com, a website geared at uncovering hazing, frequently posts facebook photos. I know a resident advisor who lost her job because of photos which were misleadingly posted on Badjocks (her teammate had posted them and this girl had unlabeled herself, but a third party had taken the photos from her teammate’s profile and sent them to the website). Another friend had someone post photos of her with captions like “So-and-so called in sick just to spend the day with us!” and requested that the captions be changed because she knew that her boss could access the info via the company facebook network. The list just goes on…</p>

<p>When it comes to anything on a webpage, privacy settings should never be trusted so strongly that they outweigh common sense and caution, not just because of what the sites are be used for, but because of what they could be used for.</p>

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<p>And don’t forget how easy it would be for a “friend” to get ticked off and spread your profile/postings all over the 'net. It makes the prior types of revenge seem tame.</p>

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<p>well, yeah, i agree with the above postings, but the article made it seem as if employers were just browsing employees open profiles. but the bottom line is: the internet is free and open, so don’t put anything on it you wouldn’t mind the whole world seeing.</p>

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<p>The best policy is to never post anything online that one might eventually be embarassed about or that they wouldn’t otherwise freely tell a potential employer, future spouse, family, etc. Unfortunately, many in HS and college (and others) don’t have a realistic foresight as to potential ramifications.</p>

<p>The idea that info posted to these sites is really vaulted is flawed. In addition to potential hacking, flaws in the facebook/myspace/etc. security (about which users reall have no technical knowledge other than what the site chooses to disclose), you never know when a ‘friend’ might decide to copy/paste or screen capture parts of your site and post it on the internet for all to see. Once the info is ‘out there’, it can’t really be put back into the box. Ditto with email.</p>

<p>An even better practice would be to simply not use these kinds of sites at all.</p>

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<p>I think the warnings on here are way too strong. Anyone could take any picture of anyone at any time and alter it and then post it all over, distribute it etc…Employers would be in dangerous territory to react and use such postings against a potential employee. I know stories of kids who have had fake myspace’s created under their names including very realistic (but altered) pictures which in actuality they had nothing to do with. Anyone who would use this type of material to make hiring decision had better be really careful, it sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.</p>

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<p>Most employers aren’t going to tell people why they weren’t hired. At most, employers will send a polite letter saying that due to an exceptionally strong applicant pool, the applicant was among the many good applicants who weren’t hired. The applicant would never know that a real or fake Myspace entry was what caused them to miss out on that job.</p>

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<p>Employers using this method ought to be prosecuted. An employer may not advertise why they didn’t hire an individual but people do talk. Using a Google search could easily net false or misleading information. The idea that a company would allow or instruct their human resources department to utilize hacking of any kind order to gain potentially damaging information is illegal and appalling.</p>

<p>Facebook is a great networking tool for individuals to connect with friends in their school community, alumni, siblings and former classmates they seldom have a chance to see. In the future it will be a wonderful way to advertise class reunions. Students can advertise the need for roommates, sell furniture and books, and advertise clubs, meeting times and group events. High school students can communicate with friends in college to ask questions and gain valuable information in their college search. Individuals can also send private messages to one another. There is no reason why any individual should be coerced into not using this wonderful site due to threats of illegal hacking. I do believe it won’t be long before we see such behavior aggressively prosecuted.</p>