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"Pre-Crime" Comes To the HR Dept.
storagedude writes "Like something out of the Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, a startup called Social Intelligence is mining social media to weed out job applicants based on their potential for violence, drug abuse or just plain bad judgment. The startup also combs sites like Facebook and Twitter to monitor current employees, presumably to monitor compliance with company social media policy, but as the criteria are company-defined, anything's possible. Just one more reason to watch what you post, folks."
I take it this screening company dont mind a few lawsuits for deformation and libel ?
It's better than the "IQ" test if it predicts behavior.
It's better than the "drug" testing because not every drug user is a drug addict.
It's highly focused on what actually matters.
If you are rational you won't go online saying and doing stupid things in a way in which it's linked to your workplace persona. If you are irrational and completely lack self control then you might, but then you might be like that Barksdale Google engineer and I'd rather people like that guy be filtered out than to continue with hiring irrational but brilliant.
That being said nobody is rational 100% of the time, but those people who are at work using their work computer to search for pornography -1, those people who are spouting idiocy under their real name -1, those people who don't protect their name, their reputation, as they would protect their company -1.
Unless they provide a full & accurate report as to what information was collected on you(and how it was used), it shouldn't even be happening.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
... but how do these "trawlers" get to see what's on, say, a Facebook page if viewing permission has been given only to a limited set of trusted people? Does Facebook permit trawlers access to such restricted information? Do they use subterfuge to get past the restrictions? How?
Create a persona that is unbelievably wonderful. Give that persons a handle and its own email account. Then if you are asked if you go online give them that persona's handle and email address. Your live in uncle must own all those other handles and he uses your PC a lot. But you are the one who constantly emails about rescuing orphans and stray dogs and cats and attends all patriotic functions ad nauseum.
If a company is so restrictive and intrusive that they can't take a couple crazy, sleep-deprived 3 am posts maybe they're not the best place to work?
From the company's point of view, any information they can gather on a potential employee is helpful. I just hope who ever uses that type of service is wise enough to not take it too, too seriously.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
so what if "someone i know" is from as small boring ass town that printed a mini article (full of bs, mostly) about one of his D.I.P's and now that is #4 when you google his name (mark stolzoff) how do you fix that?
You don't think when you apply for a job that the people hiring you are not already looking at social media (and of course Google) to see what kind of person you are?
Now I'm against HR doing this by policy as they will come up with some absurd guidelines that a real person closer to the hiring would be able to make a judgement call on. But that doesn't mean your social media footprint has not already affected your ability to be hired, for some time now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In a bad economy, sticking it to the individual worker through HR seems to always creep up.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So now stalking is officially a profession. "Don't call us stalkers! We believe in the well being of our clients so we want to stop crime before it happens. We are doing a noble deed here."
I am in favour if they are testing for spelling and grammar.
Otherwise, not so much.
My name is shared with a very famous (dead) person so I'm hard to google. But of course he had my email address. From that he found my geocaching account, liked that I made puzzles (he was looking for a game developer) from that found my /. postings, liked what he saw.
Yeah, I got the job and it was fun, but it creeped me out. I hardly ever post anywhere anymore.
Except, of course, for this...
The big danger of judging people by their character as a fit to a culture is that a particular character type becomes over-represented, and all decision-making could basically be made interchangeably by any member of the organization. Just as a gene pool that has little diversity is much more vulnerable to disaster, so to is the organization that believes that it will be more effective by stereotyping people according to their determination of their character.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
They do, however there are limitations on what they can do. They can require a drug screening and back ground check, references, but something like this is questionable at best.
Basically sounds to me like their trying to find a legal way of going back to pre-affirmative action times and hire people based upon things other than fit and qualification. Perhaps I'm a bit cynical, but this looks like a convenient way to not hire minorities.
Just one more reason to watch what you post, folks
Or one more reason to make ethical career choices, such as not working for a company that doesn't respect your right to a private life.
The hardest thing about being in HR is justifying your existence. The HR department where I work spits out a constant stream of useless projects, purely so they can claim to be doing something. For example we have a program to encourage employees to find people to apply for jobs at our company, but there are no positions open to apply for. The list goes on.
Snake oil products like this are ideal for HR. They take maybe a fifth of an HR person to administer, so it looks great on the HR managers resume (always looking for that next job, go home and update your resume). They use money (administered a budget of $DOLLARS, also great on the resume). They sound like a good idea. Its sounds really web 2.0 and hip to be involved. Really, it can't fail.
It just won't work.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
TFA makes a point that invalidates yours though - they specifically mention the fact that if you're tagged in an image your boss is contacted. At that point it doesnt matter if you're rational...every single person in your social network, no matter how extraneous, is having their discretion and rationality tested. Go to a party and have a couple of pictures taken and tagged of you messing around, harmlessly, and forwarded to a boss who perhaps disapproves of heavy drinking/smoking/you kissing guys/stupid pictures of people pretending the Eiffel tower is between their palms...pretty much anything really, and you run the risk of disciplinary action.
At that point the only rational choice is to not participate online at all, or allow pictures to be taken, comments to be made, anything that relates to you. What a sad life that seems.
I wonder how long before "Pay us and we'll keep others from finding information about you" kinda companies show up.
... what the Facebook/Twitter/media-stuff profiles of the people involved in that company look like.
What was the expression? "Eat your own dog food",was it?
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
If these people can't get a job, what motivation do they have to change? If you've got nothing to lose and no prospects of anything better, why not commit crimes? Do we really want violence prone drug addicts wandering the streets with nothing to do?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The thing is, more people get caught in the crossfire for no reason. For example your boss might object to your political stance, or he might not like you being a atheist, or he might think you're a drunk when there's only one picture of you at your birthday. Maybe he sees you dressed as a woman at a halloween party and fires you because he's homophobic. If your name is John Smith, good luck cleaning up your online identity.
Sure, some of those things are technically illegal reasons for firing, but really, in the US it isn't that hard to fire you for any reason (sometimes even no reason). Until the position descriptions have "24hr company representative and diplomat" in them (with appropriate pay), what you do on your own time and dime is your business. This just smacks of companies trying to squeeze people by the balls even harder.
I would never allow anyone I work for (or with) to be friends with me on Facebook, and if I haven't added you all you can see is my name, picture, and a link to message me and request to be added as a friend.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
And best of all, you can find out things through Facebook that you are prohibited by law from asking your employees. Want to discriminate against employees on the basis of religious or political beliefs? Gotcha covered!
It's highly focused on what actually matters.
What actually matters is job performance, period.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
sorry there are a small number of jobs that require any background checks and a much smaller number of ones that require serious background checks - sounds like a lot of HR dept's in the states have a vastly overinflated sense of their importance.
sucks if your dyslexic though
Shouldn't we be giving credit to Phillip K. Dick for authoring this story idea instead of Spielberg who, undoubtedly, has enough credits to his name and merely directed this film?
FUCK. THAT. SHIT.
That is all.
(Goddamn filters for caps.)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Yeah. It would be just like life before 1995.
they specifically mention the fact that if you're tagged in an image your boss is contacted
What a great way to get rid of workplace rivals! This will enable a whole new level of viciousness in company politics!
Seriously, it would take very little work and very little risk to completely ruin someone's career.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
That's my point, we don't live pre-'95 anymore and the richness of the online experience has become integral to our modern lives.
Or contraction challenged for that matter.
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> Employers are less concerned about junkies applying for jobs, and more concerned about people who selectively adhere to the law as they see fit.
Sounds like just about any senior executive.
Some of them will not only selectively adhere to the law but will continue to violate the law when caught and fined by the feds because it is cheaper to just pay the fine.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Your phrase people who selectively adhere to the law as they see fit sounds to me like a euphemism for "people who think". I know that's not how you intend it, and I'm not sure if the opinions in your post are yours, or your view of how employers operate, but it bears noting that laws are sometimes ridiculous, sometimes capricious, sometimes arbitrary. Frankly, I wouldn't *want* to hire someone who blindly follows all laws, without regard to how sensible they are -- not least because such a person would very likely be bad company. I'd much prefer hiring someone who thinks.
Granted, that can be difficult to ascertain from an online profile. But online evidence of lawbreaking wouldn't automatically rule someone out for me -- depending on the law(s) in question. Being discriminating is not in and of itself a bad thing; it's all in how one goes about it.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Large enough companies can get away with it for general enough positions. Sometimes they're only sort of doing it anyway. Many have a policy that you have to tender and "consider" outside applicants for a position you crafted entirely as a promotion for someone within the company.
I'm not defending the practice, I'm just pointing out that it's not irrational.
I'm in the Libertarian Party and one of my County Libertarian Party Officers had an issue with work checking his Facebook. He is a "fan" of several pages that are pro-decriminalisation of drugs. His co-workers then assumed he was a user of drugs. It took some a large amount of clarification for them to realise that a person could be pro-freedom and yet not desiring to exercise those freedoms in certain areas. I could really see this service misidentify individuals under similar circumstances.
After clearing this up he took my advise of removing all work friends from his account and making his profile more private.
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1. And you're answering that to a post which actually said it'll be used to do some covert racial or religious or political discrimination.
It already happens too. If you think someone surely can't just happen to find more flaws online for blacks or foreigners than for blacks without getting sued... guess what? It already happens. In a study, for the same resume they found out you had about 50% more chances to get called for a job interview with a name like John than a name like Ulambongo, and nobody gets sued for those uncannily non-uniform results. Welcome to the new world of online checking, where you don't even have to guess by name, and can just look on Facebook for whether that guy is a black or muslim or whatever you don't like.
But at any rate, the relationship to your retarded rant is... what? Are you willing to claim that racial and religious and political profiling (which are the kind of things the GP predicted) are actually necessary to predict who'll shoot up the place? Or did you have your canned rant and just had to use it whether it fits or not?
2. And your argument is... wait, what? The tiny percentage of workplace deaths? According to CDC data, that's an average of 800 per year, with the maximum being about 1000 in 1994, and the minimum just over 500 in 2006.
That's 500 in 310,000,000 people or roughly 1.5 per _million_ people.
So you're going to justify discrimination against literally tens of millions of people to maybe prevent a tiny percentage of 500 deaths a year? Even as scaremongering attempts to justify why someone else needs to bend over for the good of the corporate or government overlords, this has to take the cake for failed sense of proportions.
Cretin. Seriously, what a cretin.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What you say about yourself and who you associate with is a pretty clear indicator of who you are, and I can't fault the company too much for being able to research things publicly posted.
How is this relevant to being a drug user? You assume they're derelicts hanging out in opium dens or something, when they're just the guy building the next ecommerce platform.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You really haven't been paying attention for the last forty years if you think that bad practices will be competed out of the market. I mean, really?
I'm a former military officer - armored cav for much of my career, with stints in intelligence and signal slots and wartime service. I was once asked by an interviewer who was already aware of this from my resume "Have you ever had any life or death decision-making responsibilities?" A little discussion revealed he did not think literal life or death responsibility for the 30+ people in the unit under my command, in wartime, in actual combat, counted. He meant decisions or responsibilities that could have cost significant money, and nothing else. I could easily have answered that one to his satisfaction - signing for training equipment alone when I was the leader of an advance detachment meant there had been times when I was the person responsible for easily more than 100 times the value of his whole company (M1 tanks and Apache helicopters and such add up fast). Instead I walked out of that interview.
I mention this because that person is precisely the person that company will doubtless delegate to go through some potential employee's facebook pages.
Who is John Cabal?
I'm Canadian, you insensitive clod.
Yeah. Just Photoshop a picture of your least favorite co-worker in a very embarrassing position, stick it in a Facebook profile somewhere, wait for it to get tagged, and that employee is gone.
It's these low end "background checks" and "clearances" that suck. I used to be in the aerospace business, working for a company that did business with the 3-letter agencies. I've been through the clearance process for the higher level clearances. At that level, there are real background checks, where Government investigators go out and quiz your neighbors, friends, previous employers, and creditors in person. Fingerprints are taken and checked. Police records are checked. Birth certificates are checked; not only do you have to show yours, they check it against the hospital birth records. There are interrogations, lie detector tests, and an interview with a shrink. The whole process takes about a year.
But because the high level clearance process is reasonably thorough, it's not as random as the low-end stuff. It's not "competitive", in the hiring sense. There's a limited list of things the security people worry about, and they're the items that, historically, have caused people to sell or give secrets to the enemy - relatives in an enemy country, vulnerability to blackmail, financial problems, gambling or drug or alcohol abuse history. They don't care if your Facebook page makes you look like a jerk.
...it will be considered a sign of anti-social and possibly criminal behavior if you AREN'T active on FaceBook and such sites. So you won't be able to just avoid the shit and cover your head.
You'll have to hire a company to create fake profiles all over the net for you and routinely post things to them that make you seem like the model worker and/or citizen. And of course it will have to be tailored towards your type of work.
Hospital work? Patient, caring, giving.
Stockbroker? Sexist, cracks sick jokes, and laughs at other people being fucked over.
This space available.
But won't "watching what we post" only serve to lessen the dilution of social media "behaviour", making it even easier for classifiers to pick out outliers?
Put another way, if we act ashamed of ourselves and play cards close to the chest, won't this simply encourage conformal social behaviour and help to undo the social upheaval of the 60's?
In other words, while I agree that making yourself look stupid on the internet is not the smartest move, I would also say that asking everyone to "watch what they say" for fear of future repercussion sounds somewhat doubleplusungood to me.
In other words, we need to figure how to let teenagers be teenagers. It scares me, but I agree with Eric Schmidt that it might one day be necessary to let people change their name when they get to a certain age, similar to how we let people clean their criminal record at 18.
That's my point, we don't live pre-'95 anymore and the richness of the online experience has become integral to our modern lives.
And if I don't have a rich online experience that can be publicly related to me (using pseudonyms and such), does it make me a freak, a suspect or both?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
And you get +1 funny instead of insightful. This is how reliable the "online experience" is. Good luck explaining to your boss why "someone on the Internet" called you a rapist.
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
Not really.
The "full decade before the rest of us" part applies in practice to people under the Civil Service Retirement System. That system stopped taking new members more than 25 years ago. If you're in the CSRS and you don't have a mountain of debt that encourages you to continue working for full salary, you can retire at 55. (You can retire even earlier, for a much-reduced pension, if your job is being RIF'd, aka Reduction in Force, the govt equivalent of laying people off. You can also retire after 20 years if you're in a law enforcement position and at least 55 years old.)
The last CSRS employees are starting to leave the government now. Mostly, they are hanging around past 55 because they can't afford to retire yet. Still, in 10 years, they'll almost all be gone. Any public debt load their pensions represent will then start falling as they die off.
For the last (nearly) 30 years, federal U.S. govt employees have been under the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS), a hodge-podge of a (very) small pension, a govt version of a 401k, and social security. Theoretically, when all three are added together, employees should be able to retire at 55 with a reasonable income. But such early retirements are never going to be common. In reality, every time most FERS employees look at their retirement options, they realize they're going to have to work a few more years than they hoped before they can afford to retire.
IOW, the vast majority of federal employees who have been hired in the last three decades are not going to be retiring at 55. Their retirement package, in total, sucks so bad they can't afford to. Some will be thrifty and save additional money outside of their job, then invest wisely. Those folks will be able to retire at 55. Those folks are also, in government and outside of it, pretty rare birds.
So, yeah, it's theoretically possible for govt employees to "retire a full decade before the rest of us." But the present-day reality is that it's quite uncommon; in the future, govt employees who retire at 55 will be vanishingly rare.