Slashdot Mirror
How Safe is Your Employment Application Data?
Carlos asks: "I recently returned to the U.S. after working overseas for the past 16 years. As I visit job sites and corporate sites, I'm finding two issues with applying online I hope Slashdot readers could comment on. I understand security and background checks are important to most employers. However, it seems to me that far too many online applications are asking for sensitive data, such as my social security number and driver's license number. How long is my data stored in their database? Who has access to such data? It seems that every month we hear about a company that has customer/client data stolen or mishandled. I feel that such data shouldn't be required during 'step one' (ie filling out the initial online account in the career section). I'll provide such data when I've been contacted by a staff for an interview. Do Slashdot readers simply bypass such employers, or do they just hand over their identity?"
Another point relates to the pages upon pages we have to endure with an online application. Some companies make the process smooth, for example using a form of OCR with an uploaded resume. There's nothing worse than getting to step 9 (out of 20 steps) and getting a timeout error in your browser. I hope HR people who are reading this, will take a closer look at their employment process. I'm sure some readers might say, 'They make the process hard on purpose — weeding out the lazy applicants.' I fully understand this point and I'm not looking for an easy way into a company, but filling out 20 step applications at 30 companies a day, everyday, can eat a lot of time when hunting for a position."
If you have 16 years of work experience, you should contact a headhunter (job agency). They should not have difficulties finding interesting positions for you. Of course some companies only hire directly. However, for all the others, a good headhunter saves you the time of going through countless web sites, only to find job descriptions that are outdated (about positions that are no longer open, even though the web page does not say that). A headhunter won't necessarily find your dream job, but an application at a headhunter costs about as much time as a real application, and can cover dozens of companies at once. This should greatly improve your odds.
most of these are technically illegal as this information would be keys to information that is not supposed to be used in the evaluation of applications sex age race etc. Seems to me if you can't ask for someones age you really shouldn't be able to require a copy of a drivers liscence to apply!! (actually that would include age race and sex on the card)
I made changes after getting a call from a local IT services company that said they had two of me in their database and wanted to resolve the discrepancy and update my information. What made that unusual is that I'd never applied for a job with them, they were collecting the data from Dice. That was a couple years ago.
What I started doing was stripping all the data out of my old profile and created a new one with the last name of Notdisclosed, or something like that. Then I stripped out my employer names and dates, created a new email address, and replaced my phone number with a message only number.
I have my own company and won't be applying for jobs anymore and their data is getting older by the day. This is going to be an ongoing problem with companies mining online sources for their own systems, but who knows how good their security is? Or if they even have any?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
DL is also your state ID, it's not evidence of eligibility to work, but it is proof of ID... Check this out:
http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf
That should settle the argument.
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo