This is crazy
Also the other thing they do is look you up to see what is publicly available and if they can’t see anything. They ask you to login to your facebook infront of the interviewer while they tell you where to navigate.
Thats just wrong. Time to terminate your facebook account when going into interviews.
Its not unusual for someone to hire someone in my field to take a look at their porfolio site or FB profile or even go a google search but I think this goes way beyond that. Time to look for another job if they need to look at your private messages.
Years ago I used to work with a guy at a garden centre and he claimed he had “never given any of his personal details to a computer” as he put it. He didn’t even have email.
Back then I thought he was a paranoid fool but now I see him as a great prophet.
I have a job interview this month and I’m quite glad I don’t have facebook, I don’t want my prospective employers seeing some of the stuff that is up on there e.g. pictures of me wasted.
A few people on this forum have been warning about this shit for years, now.
While I doubt it’s all that common right now (depending on the job, I mean), this “intrusiveness” is only going to become MORE common as these sites expand to encompass peoples’ lives to an increasingly greater extent, and certainly as individuals in managerial positions becomes more and more savvy with the technology (i.e., as the younger generations who GREW UP with this sorta shit as a social-staple fill those hiring positions).
Suddenly, that picture of you passed out on a bed with a vodka bottle half-filled with vomit isn’t all that funny when it’s used to buttfuck 4+ years of higher education and experience. And it’s gotta be depressing when even setting it to “private” no longer MAKES it private when you most want it to.
[quote]Vir wrote:
Years ago I used to work with a guy at a garden centre and he claimed he had “never given any of his personal details to a computer” as he put it. He didn’t even have email.
Back then I thought he was a paranoid fool but now I see him as a great prophet.
I have a job interview this month and I’m quite glad I don’t have facebook, I don’t want my prospective employers seeing some of the stuff that is up on there e.g. pictures of me wasted.[/quote]
Well yeah who doesn’t have a past with people you party with. Everyone snaps pics at parties etc. What if the person see’s you drunk or talking about sex with your gf sending explict mails to eachother or she sends you a pic of her naked with out a face shot. Its off work time in private stuff they have no biz looking at.
This is why some people I know have two facebook accounts: One for employers/public stuff that has their pic and some personal info and is kept very modest with no party pics etc, and a second profile with a completely different name/no pic that they use to keep in contact with friends and family and have personal stuff on.
Horrible of course. But how could they prove that you have a face book account if you claim you don’t have one and just deactivate it temporarily to hide the profile from public view?
[quote]dirtman wrote:
Its off work time in private stuff they have no biz looking at.[/quote]
They do if it can potentially influence your job performance.
If you are being hired for a position where your image is important, they don’t want to see you stripping on a bar like you had a cameo in Coyote Ugly. Potentially bad for business.
If you are being hired for a position caring for children, performing medical procedures, etc., they don’t want to see you engaging in illicit drug use, actions that show a disregard for others or any number of things that might impact your performance on the job or reflect on your capabilities to appropriately fill that position. When your performance on the job literally effects the health and well-being of others… yeah, don’t be surprised at the higher degree of scrutiny.
Say what you want, but it DOES work. And it is a brutally effective method of culling the bullshitters from the candidate pool.
Don’t like it? Don’t apply. Highly qualified candidates are fish in the sea, and many of them either don’t do stupid shit in the first place or are smart enough to not throw it on the internet.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Horrible of course. But how could they prove that you have a face book account if you claim you don’t have one and just deactivate it temporarily to hide the profile from public view?[/quote]
Nowadays, social networking profiles are so ubiquitous it might seem “unusual” for someone to not have one.
I wouldn’t doubt that some of the more clever folks might double check a few weeks down the road.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Horrible of course. But how could they prove that you have a face book account if you claim you don’t have one and just deactivate it temporarily to hide the profile from public view?[/quote]
Thats what I was thinking… but you should not have to take those steps
FTR, while I’m personally of the opinion that if you’re dumb enough to throw shit on a SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE, you really shouldn’t be surprised if/when it ends up hitting the fan down the road, I don’t necessarily think that it is “right” for employers to snoop through private settings. I don’t want them checking my private messages any more than I want them browsing my emails, dream journals or the first drafts of fringe-fetish erotica I never got around to finishing (though, FTR, I “finished” myself several times when writing those).
But, is it really invasion of privacy if you put a picture on a social networking site and “restrict” access of it to only your 500+ friends?
I’m not an expert by any means, and while I’d PREFER that this ends up constituting an invasion of privacy, the point is… are people really surprised that employers caught on to this sorta thing?
LOL. Who didn’t see this coming? Yes, if you use public forums like that, expect future employers to look there to get an overview of who they are hiring.
This is NOTHING like some person getting drunk at a party in 1991 in front of someone with a Poloroid. Camera phones and constant communication lines means that one night you got rowdy at the strip club after too many Taquila shots is now world wide viral bait.
The other flip side. Is all it takes is someone to tag you in a bunch of photos that are funny to be taken out of context even if they are innocent. Like demotivate pics or some dumb polictical view etc etc
It’s one thing to throw pictures up and be busted, you wouldn’t snap retard pics and drive around throwing prints out the window willnilly.
It’s another altogether to be requested to open a private account, navigate private conversations and the like. People have a right to privacy.
If they wanted to do a backround check on me Id have no problem with that because I have all of my sites set to private anyways.
However, I’m confused as to how they think they have the power to enter your personal stuff? Whats next wanting your email password? Kinda rediculous to me, I could only imagine having this conversation with a potential employer. After I’d laugh my ass off for a minute I’d politely explain to them the difference between my personal information, and public information.
[quote]dirtman wrote:
The other flip side. Is all it takes is someone to tag you in a bunch of photos that are funny to be taken out of context even if they are innocent. Like demotivate pics or some dumb polictical view etc etc[/quote]
You can always “untag” yourself from those.
Half of the interview battle is in the preparation. That INCLUDES dusting your life for incriminating fingerprints and burying your skeletons as deep inside your closet as you reasonably can.
The question then is: do you want strangers and acquaintances to think you’re funny and cool more than you want to be successful?
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
However, I’m confused as to how they think they have the power to enter your personal stuff? Whats next wanting your email password?[/quote]
This is what I’m curious about, too. Obviously, they have no business browsing your private correspondences (mail, email, etc.). And, while I’m betting private messages will be covered under that, too (unless Facebook has a policy stating it’s not as “private” as the name suggests – wouldn’t put it past them), what is the verdict gonna be of an image, posted on a social networking site and accessible to hundreds of people except the people hiring you, being covered under the same laws?
[quote]dirtman wrote:
The other flip side. Is all it takes is someone to tag you in a bunch of photos that are funny to be taken out of context even if they are innocent. Like demotivate pics or some dumb polictical view etc etc[/quote]
This is the kind of thing that scares me about facebook, ignoring the original post about having someone going through your private stuff.
Imagine having to explain to someone why your friend just tagged you in a picture where you have been photoshopped onto the cover of some gay midget porn flick.
Or imagine if you have been fraped and your status is “blows goats”. You may just have lost out on your dream job.
[quote]Vir wrote:
[quote]dirtman wrote:
The other flip side. Is all it takes is someone to tag you in a bunch of photos that are funny to be taken out of context even if they are innocent. Like demotivate pics or some dumb polictical view etc etc[/quote]
This is the kind of thing that scares me about facebook, ignoring the original post about having someone going through your private stuff.
Imagine having to explain to someone why your friend just tagged you in a picture where you have been photoshopped onto the cover of some gay midget porn flick.
Or imagine if you have been fraped and your status is “blows goats”. You may just have lost out on your dream job.[/quote]
Bingo … all because you might not live up to someone elses expectaions of what a normal private life is about. Or cause your friends have a sense of humor ?
[quote]anonym wrote:
[quote]dirtman wrote:
The other flip side. Is all it takes is someone to tag you in a bunch of photos that are funny to be taken out of context even if they are innocent. Like demotivate pics or some dumb polictical view etc etc[/quote]
You can always “untag” yourself from those.
Half of the interview battle is in the preparation. That INCLUDES dusting your life for incriminating fingerprints and burying your skeletons as deep inside your closet as you reasonably can.
The question then is: do you want strangers and acquaintances to think you’re funny and cool more than you want to be successful?[/quote]
Listen, if you can find a way to justify this, feel free.
To me it’s a ridiculous overstepping of boundaries.
Yes, I “restrict” facebook to the 300 people on that list because I don’t work for or with ANY of them.
If my account is on Public, go to town as an employer. But mine has the highest amount of protections, I don’t use my real name or location and every single piece of information on there is false.
You want to check it out as an employer anyway? Fuck you. No way.