Potential employers now asking applicants for Facebook password. Good idea or not?

Okay, if you think that employers have the right to do this, please view this quick video from the official Facebook YouTube channel explaining Facebook messages and email:

http://youtu.be/sHvRNHGrNIY

I think this explains one small facet of why this practice of requiring LogIn information from potential employees is asinine.

I would honestly like to hear further arguments from PeriWink and others once they have seen this video. How could you possibly defend this practice?

that's the whole point wrote:

Right. That's the point. These employers are demanding to have access to things that, as you say, they have no right to see. If you give them your password, they can log in and see everything that you can see as the owner of the account.

Exactly. We agree with each other.

Cunning Casanova wrote:

deez nuts wrote:

Good idea for me. I'd be hired for sure. My private life is awesome, sounds like you guys are the sore losers of this world.

Explain to me how your "awesome" private life applies directly to your ability to do your job. Tell us what you do for a living, tell us about your life, and tell us why they're related.

Explain to me why someone who writes inflammatory things on facebook and is amazing at statistics deserves an actuarial job less than someone who is boring and doesn't do anything in his private life and is a mediocre statistician?

If you can't give cogent and honest answers to these two questions, then welcome to our side.

Babes, trophies, messages from dignitaries, etc. I travel to any location of the world and speak a few languages. Just accept I'm better than you, it's ok to realize you are a failure.

Lyndon LaRouche wrote:

FB is public. So they are not doing anything illegal

Be very careful what you display in public. Common sense.

Your password is not public

Asking for it is not illegal, demanding is or should be

I only use it to give details of coaching sessions coming up

How many people would still be in a job if an employer could access our letsrun posts!

Big Brother is here. Meanwhile it's are ok if you are an athlete as even if wiki has your doping record for all to see you are free to ply your trade!

I could envision a new system/app, or model of the Internet, that allows dual passwords for the same username. The password used will determine which version of your profile comes up, and you can choose which profiles to make public/private.

Lyndon LaRouche wrote:

FB is public. So they are not doing anything illegal

Be very careful what you display in public. Common sense.

Actually giving out your password to others is a violation of Terms of Service, and logging into an account is a violation too. A violation that the Justice Department told congress recently is in their view illegal, but they wouldn't prosecute, due to the difficulty in establishing sufficient case law and precedence.

So them looking at what you chose to allow the public to see on facebook? Not illegal

Them demanding your password so they can view everything, even things you chose to hide from the public? Probably illegal.

And its an egregious violation of privacy. It is akin to HR asking for keys to your house so they can look around for anything suspicious or incriminating.

What if the potential employer asked to come look at your house to see if you were neat enough? Or wanted to run your credit? Or wanted to look over your phone records? Or said your potential boss needed to follow you to a bar and see how you acted before you could be hired.

Personal life and work life are two different things. Look at Bill Clinton: Scumbag as a person, good president.

This is typical lazy HR BS. They are looking for a way to screen people without actually knowing anything about the job for which they are hiring.

Just refuse. This BS will go away.

I think the TOS is the best way to throw it back in the employer's face. "I'm sorry but the terms of service, which I have agreed to, in order to have the Facebook account, forbids giving my password out. I take my word and integrity very seriously and would never violate an agreement I have entered in to. I'm sure your business would expect the same integrity from me as well." With that statement you have stripped them of any moral high ground. If they demand the password, they show they don't want you abide by contracts or agreements, and can't expect it from you, so unless they want to be a hypocrit, they can't say anything else.

WouldThisBeOK? wrote:

Or wanted to run your credit?

This is actually quite common. That being said, it can be likened to checking out your public profile. Now if they asked to peruse your last 3 years of bank account statements, that might be a little more akin to asking for LogIn information.

[/quote]

No it is not! I use Facebook to send messages to friends and family and they send me messages. I post "notes" that are by invite only. My FB is set to private. Only people I want to see it can see it. Having a company have access is equal to them having access to my mail box. It is illegal for a company to get access to either! Screening FB is not the same as an interview. No way![/quote]

One of the points of an interview is a "personality test". Your online activity is a measure of your personality!

Rational Economics wrote:

I wouldn't want to work for any employer who makes outrageous demands like that. Want my Facebook password? I don't want to work for you. That simple.

That's what I tell my paranoid friends as well: An employer who takes an interest in what I do in my free time, and objects to it, is not the right place for me to work, anyway.

I am involved to some degree in hiring people (in academia). We have never searched an applicant on facebook, and if anyone did it privately and brought it up in the committee, that person would be looked upon very badly. The only internet search we do is on arXiv. Relax and be yourself.

WouldThisBeOK? wrote:

Or wanted to run your credit?

Many companies run a credit report as part of their background check.

In actual fact, it could have been a trick question: I would not want to hire someone who is willing to hand over his facebook password so easily, especially a statistician who I assume he will have access to sensitive data. How desperate must the candidate be if he is willing to expose his private life to me? What if his next employer asks him for passwords to his account on my system? Having someone work in my organization who surrenders sensitive information so easily would make me much more uncomfortable than knowing how someone likes to party on weekends...

It isn't a trick question. Some places actually require that they have your account passwords on file if you work there, though I think that was found illegal fairly recently.

areusure? wrote:

One of the points of an interview is a "personality test". Your online activity is a measure of your personality!

What you're not "getting" is that screening someone's facebook profile is fine. Most of us are totally okay with that. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about requiring potential employees to hand over their login information. Passwords.

I am not sure how so many of you are having such a hard time understanding this...

Track House Guy wrote:

What you're not "getting" is that screening someone's facebook profile is fine. Most of us are totally okay with that. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about requiring potential employees to hand over their login information. Passwords.

I am not sure how so many of you are having such a hard time understanding this...

It is also important to point out that you can screen someone's public activity without the password. Maybe people do not understand that aspect of it. The stuff that is password protected is private, meaning it is personal (emails, private pictures, documents) and therefore should be of no concern to the employer.

This truly is no different than an employer setting up a camera in your apartment, scanning your PERSONAL email and/or following you around outside of work.

This.Well said!

EdP wrote:

I think the TOS is the best way to throw it back in the employer's face. "I'm sorry but the terms of service, which I have agreed to, in order to have the Facebook account, forbids giving my password out. I take my word and integrity very seriously and would never violate an agreement I have entered in to. I'm sure your business would expect the same integrity from me as well." With that statement you have stripped them of any moral high ground. If they demand the password, they show they don't want you abide by contracts or agreements, and can't expect it from you, so unless they want to be a hypocrite, they can't say anything else.

Sounds like creepy HR stalkers more than corporate overreach

Cunning Casanova wrote:

Explain to me why someone who writes inflammatory things on facebook and is amazing at statistics deserves an actuarial job less than someone who is boring and doesn't do anything in his private life and is a mediocre statistician?

If you can't give cogent and honest answers to these two questions, then welcome to our side.

First off, let me say that I believe that a potential employer has no right to your facebook password, pee, details of your private life etc. That said, I will give your questions a shot.

An actuarial is an actuarial. You can insert MOST (not all) jobs into this category. A fantastic one may only be slightly more beneficial to the employer than an average one. All things being equal you take the great one. Now lets say I hire the great one. The great one likes to engage in behavior that, while perfectly legal, many people find absolutely repulsive. He IS associated with the employer. His repulsive acts may become know to the public which includes the employer's clients. These clients may be prudes. This client may not want to continue doing business with the employer. Yes it is stupid and sad but very possible. So the employer thinks, instead of risking that sweet contract with Conservative Religious Douche Company I will hire the mediocre actuarial. He will cost me, say, $20K per year in lower productivity , but I don't have a risk of loosing my profitable contract that is worth millions.

That is the general idea. McDonalds may take a chance on the f-up if he is working the fryer. The brilliant miracle worker CEO who happens to have a fetish for legal orgies at he bunny ranch in Nevada does not get a call.

Basketball players. Generally not thought off as saints. Many (including me) believe Kobe B. is a rapist. His skill set is VERY unique and the Lakers believe they can overcome this negative image. Many basketball fans don't care as long as he gets them the championship. The Lakers execs know this.

This is all cost/benefit analysis.

Organizations are protective of their image. Employee's behavior, even off hours, CAN reflect poorly on that image they are so careful of protecting.

I don't necessarily agree with it, but that is the way it is.