Image: Gizmodo
To screen job applicants, some companies and government agencies are asking future employees for their Facebook and social networking passwords during the hiring process.
The Associated Press is reporting that while questions, and eyebrows, are raising over the legality of this hiring practice, Illinois and Maryland are looking to pass a law which would forbid public agencies from asking for access to a hiree or employee’s social network. Still, Justin Bassett, a New York statistician featured in the AP profile, encountered this privacy probe when applying for a job, and declined to provide the protected information.
Though most companies have social networking policies, and do a quick Google search before hiring an applicant, this new tactic takes the employee-employer relationship to a new, more intimate level.
A recent study by social media monitoring service Reppler found that over 90 per cent of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate’s profile on a social network as part of the screening process. The study also reported a whopping 69 per cent of employers have rejected applicants based on something they saw online. But why go further?
Popular Toronto blogger and Public Relations professional, Stephanie Fusco thinks these questions put the potential employee in an “awkward” position.
“We are all really cognizant right now about what’s appropriate to put online,” says Fusco. “Employers who make that kind of request pretty much say ‘I don’t care what you choose to show me, I want to see what nobody else can see.’ If you’re choosing really carefully what to make public, or in a private thing, like e-mail, it should remain private, because it really should not impact the employer’s reputation.”
Fusco’s sentiment is echoed by an anonymous government source, who has worked at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and multiple legislative assemblies across Canada.
“The whole idea with your online identity is that you can control it, and you have the power to change it, or control whatever you want,” says the source. “I would decline access to my password to anything; my email, any social media account, and my bank account. It’s equally invasive.”
The source also says they have never been asked to reveal protected or passworded information to any of their government employers.
“Sure, gaining access to e-mails and messages that are perhaps more reflective of your ‘fun identity’ and not your work ethic are from the past and are not a reflection of your current character,” says the source. “It’s just not a logical way to accurately assess someone or predict how they’ll perform.”
Similarly, friending your boss on Facebook is an accepted, and often normal workplace convention.
“When I started work, my boss added me to Facebook the same day, and she was sitting right next to me, so I couldn’t say no,” says Fusco. “But I was okay with that. At the same time, I was able to change what she could see — she wasn’t able to comb through photos that I could choose to be off-limits.”
There are currently no laws in Ontario that prohibit employers from asking job applicants for their Facebook passwords.
“I understand why they would do it, they’re looking for dirt,” says Fusco. “But it definitely goes too far.”
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Joanna Adams writes the Morning Cable, and lots more, for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at †@nowstarringTO.
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