Slashdot Mirror
How Far Should a Job Screening Go?
SlashSquatch asks: "My sister is getting screened for a programming position with a financial firm. I was alarmed to hear she'll be getting fingerprinted at the Sheriff's Office as part of the screening process. Instantly I conjure up scenes of frame-ups and corporate scandals. I want to know, should this raise a flag? Would you submit to fingerprinting, blood tests and who knows what else (financial, genetic code, and so forth) for a programming position?"
Happy sunshine trusting in the inate good in all people is how we got Active X controls that could format your hard drive from the web. Sometimes, people are douchebags. And while you know your sister, most people in the world don't. With what's at stake, they'd prefer to avoid the scenerio in which they have to explain their lack of due care with respect to retroactively obvious red flags in her background. You could always, out of the kindness of your heart and fraternal love, pay her to sit at home and play Wii.
You make it sound menial. Whether the position with development or support, she'll have access to a lot of sensitive data that if misused could do serious damage. So, no I think the firm is doing its DD.
Depending on the sensitivity of the position, you *will* have to do things like this. If you're a programmer in a financial services firm, you might be in a position to backdoor systems for financial gain. I can see why they'd want to make sure you're not a known criminal.
I think the poster is way off. When you work in finance, you get fingerprinted because of SEC requirements (when they investigate insider trading or other wrongdoing, they often fingerprint the documents used so you can't say someone forged your signature). She probably falls under the class of employee requiring this because she has access to some sort of non-public information or real time market data not generally available to the public. I don't see anything to get heated over here. This is standard practice in finance.
Sorry pal, I was about to mod you Insightful (two spare mod points :) but I have seen a lot of comments against fingerprinting and I thought I would better write my comment to "defend" it.
The first poster (Anonymous Coward) stated it very well, she is working in a Financial Institution. I think the security on those is similar if not better (or worst? depending on POV) than the goverment agencies (CIA, FBI, DOD, ETC) because the information being played with there is *very* sensitive.
Also, I do not know what is so fucking outrageous about finger prints, my father has a ranch, and when I was younger we went every saturday to pay the pawns theyr week salary, and my dad kept a book for the payments (ala spreadsheet). Some of the pawns didn't know how to read/write, hence my father used their fingerprint as a signature to acknowledge payment. That is a common practice to autenticate people in poor countries. And it is way better thana lousy signature.
Again agreeing with the AC, I think that, if she does not want to be deeply screened then Finance is not an industry where she should get a job. She might preffer going to Google, Amazon or any standard software shop...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
http://harridanic.com
The most stupid thing is, hard drugs leave the body completely after a couple of days. Cannabis stays in the fat tissues for 1 month. So, you can be a cocaine junkie, you only need to refrain for a couple of days to get your job, but if you smoke a single joint at a party or something, you're junkie considered for 1 month, even if you behave like a monk afterwards.
As has been said, there are jobs that require background checks.
Worry more about what the employment contract says. Some of them are feudal slavery. If the employer is going to own everything that you code at any time of the day or night, whether at the office or at home, you won't be doing any open-source contributing and any personal projects that you create might not be yours without a fight involving lawyers.
You should be aware of what you are signing away when you accept a job.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
And let's also add to this, they are doing a SCREENING. They are probably looking up her fingerprints against known criminals. I am sure they are doing this to make sure she hasn't done masterful job of identity theft. You can change IDs, not fingerprints.
:-)
You are assuming that the programmers, admins, etc working with the fingerprint database have been screened.
First off, a bank deals with sensitive information (like your account information, transactions, etc.). They have a legal responsibility to verify as reasonably as possible that a person they want to hire doesn't have a criminal record that would impact the bank adversely if they hired them. Normally, that means any fraud, check-kiting, embezzlement, ...financial stuff. Of course, some places are very conservative and want to see if there is a criminal record (beyond old speeding/traffic tickets).
I have seen places do fingerprinting (some in-house, some through the local police nearby), background checks (ranging from very limited to-for clearances-all out), drug tests (use the cup). I used to work in government security and they were really concerned about blackmail, bankruptcy, debts, gambling, infidelity/homosexuality, etc.--they didn't want employees to be blackmailed into doing nasty things.
I've recently done some work for a big multinational bank and had to do the fingerprinting (they did it in-house), and take the drug test (outsourced to a lab). I kidded with the person lining up the work that "I'm glad I studied hard for the drug test" (;-).
Typically, access to sensitive information requires more than a simple check of references. But if you are doing straight programming for a dot.com and they want to do stuff that doesn't make sense, don't bother applying.
In this case, the banks have a standard of background/fingerprint checks and drug testing as per Federal Law (US). It also limits their liability a bit if it turns out the employee does something bad. And with the Patriot Act and other laws recently enacted, banks have to screen employees a bit more thoroughly than McDonald's...
Think of it this way: what kind of person do you want handling your accounts? For other lines of work, you can ask a similar question.
I shudder to think about pilots, bus drivers, train operators, etc. operating equipment that I ride in without having drug testing. I'll exclude NYC cabbies because you first have to be crazy to drive in NYC, and you probably need strong medication (licit or otherwise) to do it.
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")