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.
then that is too far
I've drawn my line at looking at my financial and even my health records; some people feel these help tell whether you are 'stable' but some of the most creative types in the world are financially incompetent. I myself am bipolar so neither of these records should be a reflection of what kind of person I am as far as I'm concerned especially now that I have found a decent medication and stayed on it continuously for over a year.
I understand that employers feel they need to protect themselves but they shouldn't be so paranoid as to limit their employee pool to only the financially stable, mentally stable and law abiding. They'll never get someone who thinks outside of the box then.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
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.
for a job interview, well, I think it was a job interview, I mean the guy in the alley gave me $50 to watch. That makes it a job interview, right? He wanted to know if I could make smalltalk with a lisp then hack my python till it spewed Java. that sounds like a tech job doesn't it?
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.
SEC Requires it for financial firms. I had to go through this when I did contract work for IBM because they were contracted to do work for a bank. If she has nothing to hide, what's the big deal. I have a record and I fully disclosed it in my application prior to even taking the fingerprints. I still got the contract work although I may be a rare exception. This is a funny stance employers will have to look at in the near (and I mean near future). Here in the US, 1 in every about 50 or so citizens has been either incarcerated or has a record. In 2001 it was 1 in every 87. What will US firms do when this number comes down to 1 in 10. Outsource America entirely...
Infiltrated dot Net
I think the WHY behind the need for fingerprints should raise flags, depending on the answer. I worked for a large financial company ten years ago that began fingerprinting all of us after a rash of petty thefts. If a company has had a bad experience with rogue employees, at least it would be understandable. If they dust for fingerprints to determine who didn't refill the coffe jug after taking the last cup, then that's going too far.
"Completely sober?! Can't be having with that..."
Getting fingerprinted is typical in the banking industry. Some banks just require this of all employees while others only require it of people who touch money or deal with the financial numbers. If a programmer would be anywhere near the software involved in manipulating the numbers in accounts, they are "touching the money" enough to be fingerprinted.
If you don't want to be fingerprinted, don't apply for a job in banking, or in a few other areas like law enforcement, government intelligence related jobs, education below the college level, etc.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Essentially, it's about the business not the job. Financial companies have access to a lot of inside information, a lot of personal information and a lot of money. As a result, they also have a lot of safety and security regulations. And if they are not stupid, they have their own company policies concerning security above and beyond any regulation.
Anyone working for such a company gets screened, basically for any indications of financial burden or potential blackmail (so they know someone else can't blackmail you into doing something illegal against them.) They look for general signs that you might be a risk for illegal behavior.
These policies cover everyone in the company, even if you are just programming something not related to someone elses money.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
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.
I'd be concerned when they ask "Do you think you're special, Mr. Anderson?"
[Insert pithy quote here]
Finger printing is the limit for me... I've turned down two jobs in the past that required I be finger printed. Both companies seemed appalled that I would turn them down for something so "petty". One of them seemed to understand when I explained that I felt the measure was a severe violation of my personal privacy and decided to wave the need for the finger printing. I this was a smaller company though, I would suspect any company of reasonable size with those kinds of policies in place wouldn't have the flexibility to bend the rules like that.
Collector's Edition
Proactive anti-discrimination law only covers six key areas of discrimination (sex, race, age, disability etc), but these laws demand that firms take positive action to prevent the possibility of such discrimination, whether it be deliberate, incidental, cultural, systemic, institutionalised etc. As such the firm must be able to prove that they took every step to prevent discrimination if it ever comes up in court, or they are liable.
However, having such proactive laws in these specific areas is not enough, as discrimination can be exercised in a number of other areas and in subtle ways. Therefore the law makes clear what areas are acceptable for discrimination (in the literal sense) between applicants/candidates for a job. It pretty much boils down to merit: candidates must be selected on the grounds of their ability to do the job, whether that be qualifications, experience, testing or whatever. If an applicant feels that there may have been a discriminatory decision made on any other grounds, the firm has to be able to defend their decisions in court/tribunal/whatever by providing evidence that their decisions were reasonable.
There are legal exceptions to this, but they are quite specific and usually down to health & safety or security, or sometimes public reputation in certain high-level positions. In truth, the practices become more discriminatory the higher-up you go, where laws seem to be more flexible (the very epitome of "privilege"), but for 99% of the population there is no way such "checking" as fingerprinting, financial records, blood samples or anything else would ever be used, nor even contemplated, in case somebody decided to question the practices in court.
One final point on that note, though. A friend of mine applied to work for the Civil Service (powerful, unelected working body of Central Government). She got through all the main tests and interviews, and her final interview was quite invasive. One thing she was asked, which always stuck in my mind, was something along the lines of "Do you feel that you participate in any activities which might leave you open to blackmail to any degree?". I think sexual practices and drug-taking were mentioned as possibilities. I've never heard of anyone being asked that kind of question in an interview before. I can say from experience that she's a massive sexual deviant, and none of her friends or family know, but she felt that she was okay-enough with them finding out to answer "No".
She got the job, anyway.
Disclaimer: I work for local government, where they tend to be more careful about obeying the law and not getting sued...
Meta will eat itself
As someone who has had mental problems leading to debit (and loosing my job) and taking vast quantities of drugs to cope I guess I wouldn't be able to get a job.
Even though I've been put on medication that works really well (after a lot of trial and error) and I've been doing very well in my current position (I got a job in the UK) for over a year.
Those tests are intrusive and don't prove anything, I'd have the option of taking them and not getting a job or refusing and still not getting the job so I think it's better to refuse and let the company know what you think of their tests.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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'
Besides, having seen some of the keyboards I've been exposed to in different jobs....how do they get through all of that crap to get fingerprints?
...no shit, cheezy poof powder! Oh! Fingerprints?...Uhmmm... ....it could be anywhere from one demented asshole, to three million high-turnover, disgruntled employees!?!
Forensic lab tech1: 'We've got the results analysed...
Forensic lab tech2 '...and it's definately Mountain Dew, Cum Stains, Red Bull, and...
Forensic lab tech1:
Forensic lab tech2:
Forensic lab tech1: 'Basically, we need more data to pin this down...'
Forensic lab tech2: 'Ah, yeah...Hmmm?...which server had that pr0n directory on it?
Forensic lab tech1: 'Sounds like a plan...you grab the Mountain Dew, and I'll grab the cheezy poofs!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
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I work for a company doing that's writing all of *State's Name Withheld( It's not the one my ID would indicate)* Dept. of Revenue software.
This would seem to be fairly sensitive information.
( I have tax records, account numbers and the ability to transfer funds for multi-million dollar companies sitting on my desk. )
I would completely understand if the finger printing was a requirement but, alas, it was not.
You are correct. It is an SEC requirement.
When I was working in Chicago, I was fingerprinted by each of the three exchanges where we had computer equipment, booths, and traders working in the pits. This was in order to get a clerk's badge, to facilitate quick access to the floors and interstitial spaces should equipment issues arise. It wasn't the firm that did the fingerprinting in my case (it was a privately held fund--no customers, in other words), but SEC requirements meant that my fingerprints would be on file, and all of my banking and private investment details disclosed to ensure I wasn't engaged in insider trading or what have you.
Many of the SEC requirements are big-brotherish and Orwellian (e.g. keeping logs of all electronic chats, keeping two archives of all incoming and outgoing emails going back years, etc.), but the blame needs to be placed where it belongs: on the SEC, and the crooks that have made such a hash of the markets at times that such draconian measures are thought to be unavoidable if the financial integrity and viability of the markets is to be protected.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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")