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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.
It actually makes perfect sense. Would you like to be disqualified from a job for something that you do on your free time that is perfectly legal, and in no way related to your job, but your employer finds objectionable?
For instance, I am a biker. I go to biker bars. I go to various bike week events. I take pictures. I post them on Facebook so that my biker friends can enjoy them, and am not ashamed of any of them even a little bit. All of which is perfectly legal and in no way related to my job or performance as an IT person. What if my employer is a prude and doesn't like the fact that I have pictures of bikini clad women on my Facebook and decides not to hire me, or even worse, fire me, solely based on their prudishness? How I choose to spent my free time is none of my employer's business as long as it does not impact my work.
For me, personally, that won't be an issue because I keep my account on private and I would never agree to give my credentials to any potential employer. I also do not "friend" people from work. For others, that might not be the case.
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.
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. :-)
Would I *LIKE* to be...? No... but at the same time, I'm aware that my decisions and actions can have consequences down the line, not all of which I will necessarily foresee or intend. However unfairly I might be discriminated against over something in the past that somebody might find offensive today, it's still my own responsibility to live with it. I am not *entitled* to forgiveness by those I may have happened to offend, no matter how insignificant I might think the matter to be. It is my responsibility only to be the best person that I know how to be with the choices and opportunities that *are* available to me in the here and the now, and not sweat about the choices that aren't... even if they are being withheld for unfair reasons.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Says the AC....
It's not about legal versus illegal.
When a business hires me, they hire my expertise and business behavior. They don't own the whole lot of me.
Here's an example: I'm a metalhead. Let's assume I publicly post on Facebook a picture of my face looking angry at the camera, with my hair loose, partially covering my face and a black background. Nothing else. Let's say this is my profile picture.
Then this picture of me in a specific posture (say, an imitation of whichever metal singer I like) is being looked at by my company XYZ prospective boss, who's a Michael Bolton fan who despises metalheads. He's going to reject my application for absolutely no business reason. Of course, nobody's going to even hint to the true reason, they'll say "your skills are not exactly what we need" or whatever bullshit they have to say to make the rejection look legal.
This expands to vegans rejecting meat eaters, non-smokers rejecting smokers, abstinents rejecting drinkers, leftists rejecting rightists, this type of sexual minority rejecting that type of sexual minority and everything in between.
If any of us go ahead and browse our colleagues' public social media information, we're bound to find numerous images, posts, videos which we dislike, and mutter "I wouldn't have hired this person". The difference being that while you don't have that power, others do, and shit can roll both ways. Today you're on one end of the stick, tomorrow you can be on the other.
"Don't post publicly", you say? Social media is all about making connections. Maybe you want to find people who think alike, and you want them to find you too. Posting publicly "I like this black metal band" doesn't make you a satanist... unless your overly-religious prospective manager thinks so and rejects your application because it doesn't fit his winged angels wet dream.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)