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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."
by Texas law unless I am mistaken, is a single branch and an entire company.
Maybe they have changed the laws since I was last there, but "a bank in Texas" might be roughly analogous, capital-wise, to a manufacturing plant in my local area. So one bank in Texas setting a policy is hardly big news.
It is REALLY hard to prove discrimination as it is. When it is discovered, it should then be actionable in some way. As it stands, there is probably nothing in the law books that would stand against it, but social networking sites could potentially show damages because of their use being discouraged.
Personally? I don't appear on any social networking sites... other than this one. If you really want to know who I am, you gotta know who I am and then read all my comments. But there are no pictures and so to confirm my identity would not be a simple matter for most.
(Please, this is not a challenge...)
The reality is that I am a high school drop-out, and I am a Chief Technology Officer. I didn't get there by starting a company, I was recruited by the company itself. I have 15+ years of experience (my first "contract" position was when I was 15). Oh, and I'm 32 years old now.
I once was given a job offer and then they rescinded it because I did not have a high school diploma. Were they wrong? You decide. I am where I am because I have the skills, experience and am damn good at my job.
If you "unconsciously" use it during the job interview, you are failing at your own job. If you consciously use it during the job interview, you may not be doing your job properly... depending on the circumstances.
Now, LinkedIn is a different matter. I leave that public, as I use that for work networking.
Honestly, this reminds me of the days when we were starting to realize we couldn't actually just throw our email addresses out there willy-nilly.
Course the question is how would the theoretical Mormon prove to the courts that religious discrimination happened? If I understand U.S. hiring laws one could simply state they didn't hire someone just because they didn't like that person. If said Mormon sued, couldn't the company state "we didn't think he/she was a good fit for our company," or "while the credentials were impressive we didn't feel he/she was a good team player compared to the other applicants," or any other cheap excuse and get off scot free?
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.
Usually, to win that kind of lawsuit, you have to prove at least one of two things:
1. You were discriminated against &/or
2. There exists a pattern of discrimination
So unless the company comes out and says "we saw [X] on [social networking site] and that's why you are not getting hired," a lawsuit has almost no chance.
/And trying to prove a pattern of discrimination is a long and expensive process.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It doesn't matter in the least how you look at it or how it is "perceived by the masses". The ONLY thing that matters, legally, is how public it is.
My point was that anybody can look at a billboard. You could paint something on a billboard and consider it somewhat private, but the reality is that it isn't private... it is publicly visible. Your "looking at it" as private is nothing but a delusion on your part... a belief or feeling that runs contrary to reality.
On many social networking sites, you can control who can see what information. And if you made that information visible to the public, then the law is very clear that you are just plain SOL. And that is reasonable! Your really can't have it both ways! If you post something in a place that is visible to the public, it is completely unreasonable to blame the public for looking at it!
And it is also unreasonable to look at it as though someone were "following you around", because they are probably looking at it from their own livingroom! How is that "following you"?
I agree that an employer should not be concerned with what you do on your own time... as long as you are not bad-mouthing them in public, or otherwise harming their public reputation. Then they might have a legitimate concern.
"... that does not mean you should (or should legally be able to) make decisions on hiring/firing people based on it without prior consent (such as someone saying check Facebook for a list of projects I worked on)."
The problem there is that you quite literally cannot have that both ways! Public information is public information. It is not permissible in the United States to tell someone "this information is public, but you, and you, and most especially you cannot look at it or think about it or use it." That's just not the way Freedom of Speech works, man!
First, I am not a lawyer. That said, I could see instances where it could hurt a company NOT to check social networking sites. If a prospective employee's profile indicates a tendency toward racial or sexual discrimination, for instance, and the person was hired in a supervisory position, then acted in a discriminatory manner, those discriminated against may be able to argue in court that the company was lax in its hiring practices, which would make it responsible for the discrimination due to its lack of research.
I believe that a company shouldn't be using non-job-related items for its hiring decisions. On the other hand, if information that disqualifies a candidate for that job is public, I believe that it is the company's duty to use that information.
I could be legally wrong, and I welcome corrections from those more acquainted with the law.
The US also uses a jury system, and in cases of discrimination it is not unheard of to use circumstancial evidence to rile up a jury and get a conviction. If your company actively uses a social networking site which has this kind of information, it might not be difficult to paint it as "poor innocent standing up to big evil discriminatory corporation" and, with cases based largely on circumstantial evidence, that can be a death sentance.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
For some people, there is just as damaging information on Google. Anyone else remember Charles Booher? http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.26.05/booher-0504.html
Sometimes social network sites are the most honest form of references you can find on an prospective candidate. And while some people express preferences or display aspects of their lives that put them in a protected class, one we're legal bound not to ask about, it is information that they choose to display in association with the name they use to seek employment. Personally, I try to ignore that stuff while I look for aspects of their life that may relate to their capability as an employee. If you are concerned that you might be denied employment because you <whatever>, use an alias.
On the flip side, some candidates reveal things that make it very easy to weed them from the process for reasons that, legal or not, are in the best interest of the company and staff. The most recent in our case was a candidate that wrote us a particularly angry letter about our interview process. A quick google revealed him to be a stalker who kept a record of threats he made and threats he received through chronicle of his life. We also found a separate site devoted to his lawsuit against a former employer over some other stalking/harassment type issue. Rather than apologize and try to correct our process, we bid him farewell.
Should we avoid learning all we can that is relevant to the job about someone we might consider hiring? Google provides levels of information previously only available through the use of a private eye and with the good comes the bad and unnecessary. So we have to ignore religion, age, race, gender, preferences, et cetera. But hiring managers have been doing that for years, this information often comes up or can be inferred during an interview.
This policy seems like a Luddite decision. It would probably be better for HR to do the research and then filter out the protected information so the hiring manager doesn't get tainted. Then the hiring can be done irrespective of protected class status and yet with full awareness of the relevant data.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
One of my friends at Stanford told me to 'take care' of my social networking sites like orkut and facebook. According to him, many universities now google the graduate applicants and scan their social networking profiles. I don't like this one bit.
Personally I wouldn't avoid hiring someone due to religious belief that would just be stupid. The way I see it, I just happen to know more about the universe than they do. Just as someone else might know more about Cisco routers than I do.
I believing in fairy tails is kinda dumb, but it doesn't necessarily make them unfit. However I still think it's an employers right to choose.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"