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Social Networking Sites Getting Risky For Recruiting
onehitwonder writes "While many recruiters and HR managers are taking advantage of the Web and online social networks to screen candidates for positions inside their organizations, a bank in Texas has decided that using social networking websites in its recruiting process is too risky legally. Amegy Bank of Texas now prohibits internal HR staff and external recruiters from using social networking sites in its hiring process. Amegy's decision to ban the use of social networking sites in its hiring process demonstrates its respect for prospective employees' privacy. It also sends a message to the employers and recruiters using social networks to snoop into job seekers' personal lives that their actions border on discrimination and could get them in a lot of legal trouble."
Some people put a lot of info on their social networking sites. Some of it is information that is protected under discrimination laws. Now even if your HR people are squeaky clean about it and ignore all that, the problem could be proving it. You check up on someone's page and find out that they do something you don't like, and that you can discriminate on. However also on that page it lets you know they are Mormon. You don't hire them, they sue you for religious discrimination because your organization has a bunch of Catholics at the top.
Well the lawsuit is now a problem. They'll claim you found out they were Mormon and that's the reason you won't hire them. You claim it is for another reason, maybe something they've now removed from their page. Well it's now "He said, she said." Maybe the jury doesn't buy that the other thing was what you cared about and all of a sudden you owe a bunch of money.
But just like discrimination against age, disability, religion and race they just have to pay lip service and any employer can discriminate all they like.
Probably not. You sound like an asshole. ;-)
Doesn't mean they won't. I know a couple managers, and frankly you are sticking your neck out if you make a couple of bad hires. What is to stop someone from snooping on your myspace/facebook (other than privacy settings) from their own home.
It all comes down to what has been said before, if you don't want the world to know, don't put it on the internet. Its the reason why I discontinued facebook, because quite frankly, I find it rather advantageous to be mysterious ( especially with women ;) ).
Anyone who has ever hired someone has googled him/her. It's almost inevitable not to land on a person's social networking page, if this person uses her own name online. It will be very hard to totally ignore the information you found there. Even if you don't intend to you will unconciously or conciously use it during the job interview.
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I can't tell if the purpose of this post was to brag about yourself or hate on human resources. Either way it's pointless.
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Why does he sound like an asshole? I don't get that impression.
What if you believe that human resources is a useless department, and you want to explain why so. How do you go about doing it?
That is not the purpose of HR. HR's job is to protect the company from lawsuits.
The reason your sisters HR department went to the trouble of making sure she took her leave, is because if she had been cheated out of even one day of it, the company would have been in violation of federal law, and liable for a nice fat payday.
9 out 10 HR departments don't give a care about the actual employee, they care about liability and employment laws. Ultimately, their goal is not in line with the greater goals of the company, which is why you need HR departments, to protect companies from themselves.
A growing issue in involuntary participation in social networking. Even if you'd like to stay off "the facebook" seeing it as nothing but trouble, your friends/colleagues can still post tagged pictures of you, notes about your participation in social activities, and whatever else they feel like doing. At this point it might be a good idea to get in if only to monitor your status and let your side of the story be known, lest your activist HR department decides to judge your entire value system based on a picture at a political event you just went to for the grub.
Actually, I was just kidding, but now that you mention it, he does sound like kind of an asshole.
Here's a scenario:
Say I apply for a job by sending in my resume. Prominently featured in 48pt font just above my name are the words, "I'm Mormon and Proud of It!" Let's say, hypothetically, that I don't get the job. Is the company liable for discriminating against me because they are in possession of knowledge of the fact that I am a Mormon and subsequently didn't hire me? Of course not.
This is just an employer being overly cautious because it doesn't think that the information about potential employees that can be gleaned from Facebook is all that valuable. And maybe it's not. If an applicant is an obvious douchebag on Facebook, he's probably a douchebag during an interview as well.
Besides all that, "discrimination" isn't an across-the-board no-no. Only certain things are illegal if used to discriminate in hiring. Like race, age, national origin, sex, etc. Discriminating against a person (i.e. not hiring him or her) for being a moron, possessing an unimpressive resume, or publicly displaying yourself as a drunkard on social networking sites is EXACTLY the kind of discrimination in which hiring companies SHOULD be engaging.
and with that, the facebook takes its next victim.
well played facebook. You almost have to admire the cunning.
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I guess the point is that the candidate who interviewed and didn't get the job will just receive a stock answer like "Thanks for your time, but we've filled the position." That candidate has absolutely no way of knowing whether he didn't get the job because his Facebook profile said something the employer didn't like, or if the employer really did find a better person for the position, or what.
He can rant and rave all he likes about how it must be because he's Mormon, or gay, or likes dogs when the HR person likes cats, or whatever, but he has no way of proving that. Even if he somehow managed to get it to court, the employer just has to say "We found someone else, that's all," and that's the end of it.
You say it's easy to convince a courtroom that you were the subject of discrimination, but I disagree. I think it'd be nearly impossible to prove, because the employer can come up with any number of reasons you didn't get the job. Honestly, they can say something like "Well, I didn't like the color of the shirt he was wearing in the interview." They'd look like loonies, but there'd be nothing illegal about it, and I can't see a legal way to argue against it.
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Our HR department is the opposite. We were recently given a list of questions we must ask everyone whenthey return from sick leave.
Imagine how stupid I felt asking someone who returned after having a broken leg in a car accident which was the other driver's fault: "Do you think that this is likely to recur?", and with his leg in plaster "Have you any written evidence, such a s a medical certificate, showing that this was a genuine illness?".
More to the point with the possibility of a flu pandemic people have to make every reasonable effort to come into work, and must declare that they did so on returning
.
There is an escalation process for repeat absences, whatever the reason and a bonus for not being sick in a year, so I am sure some people will think "hey this could be swine flu but if I don't try to get in I could end up in disciplinary. On the bright side if it is swine flu maybe someone in HR will catch it".