As if employer’s snooping into Facebook isn’t bad enough, now Social Intelligence, a new start-up, has created a program that pulls every piece of social media snippet from prospective employees. What does this mean? During your next background check, an employer can now check out all of your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, and social media blurbs. This also includes if you’ve been tagged in a photo from Flickr, Picasa, Yfrog, and Photobucket. If there is disparaging information or pictures, you will most likely not make the cut to stage 2 of your job interview.
Aren’t there laws against this? I always assumed the Internet support itself is unregulated, but one non-Internet agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, may restrict such activity, says Joe Bontke, EEOC Manager. Here’s the deal: Employers cannot search for anything they cannot ask during the interview. This includes age, religion, race, and other discriminating factors. By doing so violates the federal antidiscrimination employment rules. Bontke also mentioned that 75% of recruiters are instructed to perform online searches of candidates, and of that 75% that search, only 30% make the cut.
I’m glad to see the EEOC can take action against illegal social media searching of candidates. However, how can they really enforce an employer finding out if their candidate is a drunk or satan worshiper? I’m a big believer that employers should not dig through the social media sites to find dirt on potential candidates. But, I cannot see the EEOC initiating computer support investigations on employers who may be in the wrong.
Unless you are a computer repair company (shameless plug), your social media profile is a personal one and should remain that. Of course, there are exceptions when it comes to the FBI or government jobs, but non-clearance roles do not validate snooping through people’s personal lives. Yes, you can learn a lot about someone with how he handles himself personally, but the argument may also be made that many people act much differently when outside of work. Hey, I enjoy getting down to some hip hop music once in a while at home. That doesn’t mean I’m going to come into work with gold chains and screaming obscenities.
Let’s just cap off this social media topic by saying that I’m not a big fan of digging into one’s personal life at all whether for work or pleasure. But, this potential slippery slope may lead many away from the very technology we love: social media. People will start becoming less social if their inhibitedness is the very reason they are unfairly judged.
