I’ve been hearing a lot this week about employers asking potential employees to provide their Facebook log in information during the interview process. This has obviously stirred up a lot of controversy, especially surrounding the 1st Amendment and raised concerns over how it would affect equal opportunity employment; personal information such as sexual orientation and religion could be used to discriminate against job seekers.
I understand the desire of state or correctional institutes to want to use social media to investigate a potential candidate, but do you really need access to their personal account? Can’t you just friend the person? (Even that would probably be taking it too far because of EOE rights, as stated above). Why not just ask for personal banking information while you’re at it? Anyway, I would hope that a state or correctional facility would have resources to do background checks on personnel beyond logging into their Facebook page. Being in the marketing industry, I can’t imagine working for an employer who thinks it’s ok to ask for this type of information let alone giving my username and password to anyone, especially in a job interview. However, I can just imagine recent college grads that are so anxious to land that perfect first job giving up their rights to personal privacy. In this recent Mashable article, Facebook has taken a stand against this practice, citing their own privacy policy, potential for discrimination and the responsibility that falls upon a potential employer who comes across illegal activity. Of course, they have a vested interest in protecting their users, but good for them anyway!
What are your thoughts on this controversy? How far would you go to land a job? As a hiring employer, where do you the draw the line between vetting new employees and invading their personal privacy? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.Photo Credit: Alessio85 via Flickr Creative Commons license
