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Europe Says Employers Must Warn Job Applicants Before Checking Them Out on Social Media (cnn.com)
Europe has a message for employers: Think twice before you check the social media profiles of job applicants. From a report: European officials have issued new guidelines that warn bosses about the legal hazards of scrolling through the social media profiles of potential hires. The rules require employers to issue a disclaimer before they check applicants' online accounts, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn. If applicants don't see the warning, the company could be in breach of European Union data protection rules. Employers are also barred from compiling social media data as part of the hiring process unless it is "necessary and relevant" for a particular job. The guidelines are part of a lengthy document clarifying data protection laws that apply to employers across 28 EU countries.
Europe, you so damn restrictive and weird about it too! Do y'all have a playbook for all these laws? Regardless, it seems a little strange that people would be posting shit on their facebook or twitter accounts that they don't want the world to see. Becuz da world is seeing it.
I propose the next law is making simple disagreement a hate crime.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yes, businesses will surely stick to those guidelines.
The End
Stuff that matters.
I fucked up my reputation beyond repair in order to never be employable in my entire life. Gets me out of having to work for others.
Understand that there is a HUGE difference about how people in the EU and in the US think about privacy.
In the US if it isn't public, it is private. In the EU if it isn't private, it is public.
Also in the EU the general idea is that the laws should be there for the people in the first place. And they are used to even the playing field between the heavyweight companies and the lightweight individuals.
This is so much difference that the standard answer from an American will be "This is stupid, because companies." while a European will most likely say "This is great, because companies"
Again: the idea of what privacy means is different between the two. You can see this with e,g, Net Neutrality.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
For job applications in CA, there's a checkbox to receive a copy of the background check and/or credit reports that the employer requests. In 20+ years of working in IT, no private sector company has ever requested a background check and/or credit reports. Only my government IT job requested background check AND credit reports (all three bureaus). I expect social media to be more of the same.
And just how the heck do they expect to enforce this? I mean, short of the employer directly *asking* the employee if they have a such-and-such social media account, how would anyone other than the person who did the search know about it?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm sure businesses will still look, but the rule means they'll have to find some other reason to not give people the job, offer a promotion, or fire them.
What surprises me is that there's ample evidence out there that companies search people's social network profiles -- some do it casually and others do it as a formal part of the HR process. Why hasn't it sunk in with average job seekers that oversharing on their public profiles is a bad idea? I've noticed that LinkedIn posts, comments, etc. are getting more controversial since they redesigned the site as a Facebook clone. Why would anyone risk taking themselves out of the running for a job by posting an opinion on something that their potential future employer doesn't like?
The truth is that your social media profiles, if they exist, have to be as boring as possible if you want to be the ultimate drop-in replacement employee these days. HR departments have hundreds of applicants for each job and every reason in the book to narrow the pool. If you post a million pictures of your kids, you might not be perceived as a workaholic team player. If you post rowdy drunk pictures, you might be perceived as a walking latent lawsuit. Political and religious opinions are huge red flags because you never know who you're going to upset. Your public social media profiles need to be totally clean, but they do need to exist -- because then you might be perceived as a hermit. :-)
Warn people before they are allowed to provide jobs in Europe
Especially if you have one those loud obnoxious Harley Davidson POS'es.
I'd also hold it against you if you have gray hair.
Illegal?
Prove I discriminated against you based on age. Prove it.
"Sorry, you don't have the skills." is all you'll see or hear.
What if I only want to hire people who are smart enough to make their profiles private.
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So the HR guy cannot check you from his office computer
Instead he goes to Starbucks for lunch and does it there.
Either way you don't get the job, snowflake.
Now whacha gonna do?
Do you also include all the buffets that you have driven to bankruptcy by eating them out of house and home?
They have this thing called fines.
Like the billions of Euros in fines they issued to various US firms doing business in the EU who violated privacy laws.
Corporations tend to notice those.
As to "who searched" it's an auditable event and it's usually something brought on when they deny someone a position.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
'The rules require employers to issue a disclaimer before they check applicants' online accounts, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn. If applicants don't see the warning, the company could be in breach of European Union data protection rules'.
That doesn't really change anything. The would-be employee is then in the position of a man in a secure cell awaiting execution in the morning. He knows what's going to happen, but he can't change it. If you could change your social media postings in retrospect, that might make some difference - but of course you can't.
'Employers are also barred from compiling social media data as part of the hiring process unless it is "necessary and relevant" for a particular job'.
As determined by the employer, of course. I have enough experience with corporations - big and small - to understand that this kind of clause is nothing more than window dressing. It makes things look better, but changes nothing in practice.
The key issue is not about reading a person's online profile - anyone can do that. It's about forming judgments about someone's suitability for employment based on the profile.
It seems to me that the US and European views of the matter differ very markedly. Americans, as far as I can gather, tend to think that the employer should have full discretion to hire and fire at will. Europeans, rightly or wrongly, look for some kind of standards of fairness. You shouldn't be turned down for employment because someone disliked the way you look, or speak, or the colour of your skin or your religion. Or because you wrote something online that the employer found annoying.
It all depends on whether you believe people should have a right to employment on decent terms. If not, all this legislation should be repealed.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Companies can incur significant legal risk by attempting to check out applicants' social media.
Companies (in the US anyways, but I think this is true as well in Europe) are legally BARRED from even asking about certain items over the course of a job interview. For example, they cannot ask about race. They cannot ask about sexual orientation. They cannot ask about marital status. They cannot ask if you have kids. They cannot ask how old you are.
Reading someone's social media profile can actually open a company up to legal exposure, because reading (say) someone's Facebook page gives the company most of this information. If they later decide not to hire the applicant, the applicant potentially has standing to sue on grounds of discrimination, because you based your hiring decision on information you're not allowed to decide on. For example, if you can't ask someone in a job interview if they're gay. But if you open their facebook page and read their relationship page, you've effectively sought out information you're not supposed to ask. And if you later decide not to hire them, you've exposed yourself to be scrutinized on whether the reason you made that decision was illegal.
I would suspect your legal department would advise against searching social media for prospective employees.
Frankly, that's why this rule makes sense. While many companies are upright in their decision making, companies that really DO want to reject applicants on illegal grounds can effectively do so and hide the evidence if they do it via a social media search. Requiring companies to disclose that they do such a search at least puts applicants on a level playing field of knowing what information they were assessed in relation to.
I do not think you understand the impracticality of that.... considering that many jobs can have dozens or sometimes even hundreds of applicants, doing that for every single person that didn't get the job is prohibitively expensive, especially when it is unlikely to reveal anything fruitful in the first place. When one doesn't get a job they applied for, the most obvious reason is probably the real one: they decided to hire somebody else.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
... to live than pretty much anywhere else, certainly including the United States. The US is in a breakneck race to the bottom, essentially becoming a prison state. If you're a poor immigrant, you'll get kicked out, but if you have any assets at all, you have to surrender them at the border if you want to emigrate. Surveillance is pervasive, justice is for sale, and corporations basically write and pass their own legislation (don't think for a moment that TPP won't be revived the second Trump leaves office).
America isn't a place to follow your dreams. It's a place to escape from, if you can.
FTA: "The rules require employers to issue a disclaimer before they check applicants' online accounts"
So part of the application process will be a statement that "by submitting your application you agree that the company may view your public account on social media sites."
Why is this a big deal? I always do light research candidates online, it's a way of validating what is on their resume. I've even had co-workers with spouses/friends who work at the places where the candidates are, and I've gotten feedback that made me not consider them.
How the hell are you supposed to hire someone if you don't learn about them? Of course, I am only interested in how they are at their job, not in their personal life.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I don't think you understand how the EU hiring process tends to work. To you it's inconceivable that it would involve so much bureaucracy and paperwork.
I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.
It's the EU.
Not the US.
Things are different.
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Because in Socialist Finland (part of EU), its illegal to extract information about an applicant from databases, without prior consent from the applicant.
http://finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2004/20040759
A link to your github page on your application probably counts as consent.
Illegal in EU. Contracts are only all-or-nothing if *after* discussion between parties it cannot be changed. I've had clauses changed or removed because wording was vague and could easily be construed as an overly onerous condition. Clarification after the fact (like verbal or even email) is not considered in the event of a dispute, only what is in the contract.
Forcing someone to sign an enployment contract they haven't read in order to be employed is also illegal and renders the entire contact null and void.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Anyone else find it amusing on Facebook that anyone dumb enough to be a trashy, partying, alcoholic piece of crap or raging racist or SJW crazy person also tend to not have the foresight to set their default post privacy to "friends only" instead of public.
By the way, this is incredibly dumb. It's out in public on the public internet. You don't need to warn them that you're viewing public info.
I never used the word "inconceivable", you did. I said it was impractical, because in reality, nearly any investigation would generally only reveal that the most obvious reason why person A didn't get the job: because they hired person Z, is actually all there is to it.
To suggest otherwise would obligate any employer to be required to hire any and all applicants that represented any kind of visible minority, because of the allegation that any refusal to hire them must always be on account of their race.
The EU might be pretty different from NA, but I don't think it's *THAT* different.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
For starters, you only need to do that for the person who DID get hired.
Also, you only need to bust the employer once to start a legal investigation.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Right... but that's further assuming that there's even any evidence that the employer did it.
Because you know, cookies and browsing histories are just soo hard to delete. Heck, who is to say they even used a company computer?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I do not think you understand the impracticality of that
I do not think you understand the impracticality of hiring in Europe.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
any refusal to hire them must always be on account of their race.
This is the EU, not the US.
I went to the CNN page, but they didn't give us a source on this either. Anyone have a link to the source on this?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
If your social profile is that of someone who offends, or is easily offended then why hire that person. The whole argument of "what I do in my private time is my business, as long as it doesn't affect my work" is preposterous. Let's say that you have a perfect employee who likes frequenting bars right after work, and one day get his laptop stolen from their car...wouldn't you like to know how much "work" goes with them. What about someone who is wearing a jacket with the company logo on it while harassing women somewhere...probably would like to know that too before it ends up on social media. I'm just saying that if it's public it's public.
There are plenty of secretaries that hate their boss and their job and sent out letters with a sinister smile that contain: "We have to dismiss your application because of (pregnancy, being gay, jewish, black, your last facebook post)" (pick one)
And they will attest in court that the boss said so (obviously they were not supposed to put that into the letter).
And you can not even fire the secretary for attesting in court against the boss.
You can only "urge her to leave" and give her/him a nice payout.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I don't know about what's legal and illegal to ask and officially consider in the hiring process for EU countries. But here in 'Murica you can't ask about things like marriage, sexual orientation, children, religion, etc.
That having been said there's nothing to stop a potential employer from looking at an applicant's social media and finding out answers to all those pesky illegal questions without ever having to ask them. And then using said quasi-legal information as part of the decision making process for hiring.
This is paper tiger legislation because while the law says they can't do it there's no real way to prove they did. They search, they get info, they make a hiring decision. They never tell you why you didn't get hired.
Don't use social media, or at the very least, don't use social media in a way that can be connected to you. It works for me.
I'm guessing they can create a fake social media account, monitor all of its visitors, post a fake CV of that person to a lot of recruiters. And then see if any of the visitors is a HR person.
Would such a method be legal for authorities to use? It's not entrapment for example?
European nations have their faults as well, so I'd dial that back a bit. That said, it seems pretty clear the the US is currently in decline (and that decline is accelerating), and many European nations are advancing.
Without context and in isolation this will probably sound weird for most people, but what it really represents is that employers should judge job applicants only on stuff that applicants are aware of and in control.
It's a single thing that composes a set of laws on fair and equal opportunity for employment... which will probably get into a far more comprehensive set of discussions, but just so people know.
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So, if they aren't allowed to peruse LinkedIn, how are they going to find the people they need?
That's where statistical analysis might help.
Is company X only hiring young people, despite applicants coming from all age categories?
Is company only hiring non-smokers?
Is company only hiring this and that type of people?
Are rejected applicants sharing some social media parameters that might lead to the suspicion that company X is screening them using this method?
et caetera.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Really, what's so difficult to distinguish between Europe and the European Union????????
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
LinkedIn is on the list of online accounts you aren't allowed to check.
I had one recent applicant put a link to their LinkedIn profile on their resume.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There are a variety of personal questions that employers are barred from asking a candidate:
* How old are you?
* Are you married?
* Are you LGBTQ?
* Do you have kids?
* Do you own a car? (unless the job requires a personal vehicle)
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Yet the employer is free to look you up on social media and find the answers to many of those questions without your knowing. They can find even more personal details and possibly see who your friends are. This is way more invasive than the seemingly innocuous questions above.
Why do we in the U.S. disallow one but not the other?
I'm sure the first argument is that it's your own fault for posting publicly, but that would only make sense if you were shouting room the rooftops. The employer has to take specific action to view your social profiles. Similarly, if you blurt out, "I'm 37 and married with two kids," in the interview, that's on you. They still can't use that information to discriminate, but potential discrimination is the reason they can't ask themselves.
How is searching for your social profiles any different from asking probing questions?
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
What if you share posts about ending the drug war or politics? If the HR person disagrees with your stance, they may not hire you. Is that acceptable? Those things won't affect your ability to do the job, but it gives an unscrupulous employer the opportunity to discriminate against you.
Or maybe you have a photo of you with your spouse of the same gender or a different race? Again, that person can now discriminate against you which would actually be illegal.
It's easy to avoid posting things that will obviously show you in a bad light like party photos or you drawing a dick on your passed-out friend's face. I still think you should be protected, but a lot of people probably side with you on that count.
The reason to disallow employers from poking their noses into your social life is discrimination. Some forms have legal protection while others do not. Better to just block the possibility.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Europe Says Employers Must (...)
Europe says nothing, Europe is a continent.
European Union produces regulations, but it is always difficult to figure what EU institution spoke. Here it could be the EU commission, EU council, member state regulators...
After reading TFA, it seems it is EU commission. What I still do not know is what are the legal grounds for the new guidelines.
Do the rules apply only when I apply for a position myself? What about those headhunters on LinkedIn? They have surely checked my profile before contacting me.
> However, I'm not sure I have a problem with the business' HR searching through publicly available data a person self publishes for the world.
What I do in a pub with mates is also 'public'. Maybe I should take the HR down with me one Saturday, so they can make notes on my behavior ?
It's not what I publish to the world.. there's private life and things that I publish privately for my close friends and family to see, and there's professional life that is completely separate from the former.
Forcing someone to sign an enployment contract they haven't read in order to be employed is also illegal and renders the entire contact null and void.
Which is why you are required to initial certain clauses, and sign the part where it says that you have read and understood the contract...
There are lots of interesting comments here.
However let us just for a moment restrict to ourselves. IT and other technical/STEM/whatever ladies and guys.
These days I expect anybody I hire in this sector to have at least a basic understanding of all the "everything on internet is public" stuff.
These days I expect anybody I hire in this sector to have at least a basic understanding of restrict access to your facebook (and similar) profile to friends if you don't consider those public including yang Tsu in China, Markus Hinterhuber in Germany and your next employer.
These days I expect anybody I hire in this sector to have at least a basic understanding of Linkedin is business, not personal. This means a profile picture appropriate for the kind of job you are looking for (bad vacation pic in swimming trunks is unexpected on a high level CV), a reasonable amount of spell and grammar checking and so on (as I said, calibrated to the kind of job).
If these don't match it doesn't mean I won't hire them, but it is an alarm sign compounding other impressions. AGAIN: CALIBRATED TO THE KIND OF JOB, now don't come and crucify me.