"Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no." Click here to read the rest of the article.
Another trend currently going on is the hiring company is asking candidates to send a friend request to the HR manager, or better yet, they have the candidate directly log onto their FB account during the interview so the interviewer can look at it in their presence.
I understand that the motive for some employers is to see the character of someone who they might be hiring. I also see some people handing over their passwords especially if they are really desperate for a job...like they're under duress. However, where does the line in the sand get drawn?
Let's face it, most people have Facebook accounts. I'm willing to bet that a great majority of Facebook users also have certain "friends" because they felt they "had to" accept (i.e. Aunt Betty's best friend sent a you friend request and you knew if you didn't "accept" Aunt Betty would be upset so you did...or it would have been rude to not have some of your co-workers on there, or even your spouses buddies...blah blah blah). I'm also willing to bet that some of these people are put on filters due to the reason that you didn't necessarily want them on your FB page but felt you had to in-order to save the peace.
I have a friend on Facebook - we used to work together. She still works at the same place, and I've moved on. I genuinely like her, however I CRINGE whenever I read her status update messages as she's usually blasting something negative about her job or boss. I think...no, I KNOW she's the reason why confidentiality agreements are created in the workplace! So perhaps this is exactly what hiring companies are trying to find out, as this is a real concern with social media etc.
What are your thoughts and views on this topic? I'm sure there are different angles that I haven't even looked at yet. Just out of curiosity, has anyone been asked for their passwords yet? If so, how did you handle it?
Marnie xo
