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Social Networking Sites Getting Risky For Recruiting
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Apr 28, 2009 08:27 PM
from the no-clue-what-you-did-last-summer dept.
from the no-clue-what-you-did-last-summer dept.
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."
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Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people put a lot of info on their social networking sites. Some of it is information that is protected under discrimination laws. Now even if your HR people are squeaky clean about it and ignore all that, the problem could be proving it. You check up on someone's page and find out that they do something you don't like, and that you can discriminate on. 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.
Well the lawsuit is now a problem. They'll claim you found out they were Mormon and that's the reason you won't hire them. You claim it is for another reason, maybe something they've now removed from their page. Well it's now "He said, she said." Maybe the jury doesn't buy that the other thing was what you cared about and all of a sudden you owe a bunch of money.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah! Then you can claim that you were discriminated on your schizophrenia!
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
It really depends on if the voices in your head tell you to do things, or if they just get off their lazy asses, take over and do it themselves!
Parent
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Coincidentally, I just attended a CLE that touched upon this issue today. The recommendation was that if you use any data miners to go out and look for damning information on social networking sites, they should be people who are well versed in the prohibited bases for not hiring people. Additionally, these people should NOT be the hiring decision makers. Essentially, these people would forward legally appropriate information to the decision makers who would then use the sanitized information in the hiring process (i.e. quotes about how the candidate financed his BMW from his current employer's cash reserves).
Parent
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm confused as to why anyone needs to provide ANY reason why someone didn't get hired. Getting fired is a separate issue. You need documentation to back up the decision, etc, etc. But hiring someone? Heck, just because you turn in an application and have an interview doesn't mean you've got the job, especially in this economy when there are 100 applicants applying for a single position. The chances are very good that you won't get it, even if they love you.
-Restil
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well the lawsuit is now a problem. They'll claim you found out they were Mormon and that's the reason you won't hire them. You claim it is for another reason, maybe something they've now removed from their page. Well it's now "He said, she said." Maybe the jury doesn't buy that the other thing was what you cared about and all of a sudden you owe a bunch of money.
BRAD What do you want?
LESTER One year's salary, with benefits.
BRAD That's not going to happen.
LESTER Well, what do you say I throw in
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the hell do you live?
Race, gender and (I'm pretty sure) religious discrimination when selecting people for jobs is illegal under EU law as well. In most of the civilised world you can sue over that sort of thing.
Private company or not, you don't get to decide you won't hire blacks or women.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"A bank in Texas" (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:"A bank in Texas" (Score:4, Informative)
This is where RTFA comes in handy. The first paragraph of TFA:
You won't find Amegy Bank of Texas CEO Paul B. Murphy Jr. uploading new profile pictures onto Facebook or linking Twitter feeds to a MySpace page. Murphy, who heads the 87-branch, Houston-based bank, isn't personally involved in the brave new world of social networking Web sites, but he certainly knows what they are. And thanks to his lawyer, his bank is successfully navigating the legal land mines they can contain.
Parent
Re:"A bank in Texas" (Score:4, Funny)
In Texas!!?! A bank in Texas setting a sane, progressive policy like this is akin to a mosque declaring an equal rights policy in Saudi Arabia! This is up there with Gorbachev declaring perestroika!
Parent
Social networking sites should file suits (Score:3, Interesting)
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...)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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...)
Of course it is not a challenge. Everyone here is a twitter sockpuppet.
Re:Social networking sites should file suits (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
They can say they will ban it (Score:5, Insightful)
But just like discrimination against age, disability, religion and race they just have to pay lip service and any employer can discriminate all they like.
As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not. You sound like an asshole. ;-)
Parent
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes an asshole is the right guy for the job.. if its a job in HR, for example.
Parent
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, there's careful mention of his exact accomplishments and the age at which he made them, calling a whole group of people he I guess manages useless, and the in-your-face rhetorical questioning about whether he is really as awesome as he says he is. I'd find it insufferable.
Parent
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Funny)
careful mention of his exact accomplishments and the age at which he made them
Ha! By that metric Steve Jobs, Hans Reiser, and Stephen Wolfram are all assholes.. oh, I see now, never mind.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I was just kidding, but now that you mention it, he does sound like kind of an asshole.
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell if the purpose of this post was to brag about yourself or hate on human resources. Either way it's pointless.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What if you believe that human resources is a useless department, and you want to explain why so. How do you go about doing it?
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:4, Funny)
Meanwhile, I am so good at my job because I'm a time-traveler from the 37th century...
Yeah, McDonalds can be like that...
Parent
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:4, Informative)
I think that HR departments try to prove that they need to exist some times.
My sister works at a bank which has a HR department. When her baby was due and she had to take parental leave she was called to a meeting with HR. Her manager had previously asked her to work longer and take shorter leave. Scared that they'd find some reason to fire her she offered to work longer and drop in every now and then after the baby was born to take some of the workload of her co-workers. HR did not accept this proposal and insisted that she would take her paid leave and come back to work when she'd be ready.
Moral of the story; HRs' sole purpose is not hiring but keeping good staff members happy and in the company and more importantly protect the staff from management abuse.
Parent
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason your sisters HR department went to the trouble of making sure she took her leave, is because if she had been cheated out of even one day of it, the company would have been in violation of federal law, and liable for a nice fat payday.
9 out 10 HR departments don't give a care about the actual employee, they care about liability and employment laws. Ultimately, their goal is not in line with the greater goals of the company, which is why you need HR departments, to protect companies from themselves.
Parent
I really, really hate HR (Score:5, Insightful)
Our HR department is the opposite. We were recently given a list of questions we must ask everyone whenthey return from sick leave.
Imagine how stupid I felt asking someone who returned after having a broken leg in a car accident which was the other driver's fault: "Do you think that this is likely to recur?", and with his leg in plaster "Have you any written evidence, such a s a medical certificate, showing that this was a genuine illness?".
More to the point with the possibility of a flu pandemic people have to make every reasonable effort to come into work, and must declare that they did so on returning
.
There is an escalation process for repeat absences, whatever the reason and a bonus for not being sick in a year, so I am sure some people will think "hey this could be swine flu but if I don't try to get in I could end up in disciplinary. On the bright side if it is swine flu maybe someone in HR will catch it".
Parent
Just because they say they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't mean they won't. I know a couple managers, and frankly you are sticking your neck out if you make a couple of bad hires. What is to stop someone from snooping on your myspace/facebook (other than privacy settings) from their own home.
It all comes down to what has been said before, if you don't want the world to know, don't put it on the internet. Its the reason why I discontinued facebook, because quite frankly, I find it rather advantageous to be mysterious ( especially with women ;) ).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While it certainly might be a good idea to see whether a prospective employee is a two-time felon, for example, I do not know of anyone outside HR departments -- not a single person -- who really thinks it is your job to track down and report on whoever said "fuck" on the internet, or told the occasional off-color joke, or has a different political opinion.
When my
Google your future employees (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who has ever hired someone has googled him/her. It's almost inevitable not to land on a person's social networking page, if this person uses her own name online. It will be very hard to totally ignore the information you found there. Even if you don't intend to you will unconciously or conciously use it during the job interview.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand anything of what you are trying to say here, and how it relates to my post.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Google my first, middle and last name, you will find a guy who is not me, has my name, the same type of degree (better school though!), engaged to a woman with a name very similar to my wife's.
I'm not sure I would trust this Google hypothesis.
That's why you make your facebook... (Score:5, Funny)
...the most ridiculously amazing profile ever:
Hobbies and Interests:
- working hard every day
- always obeying superiors
- working overtime for standard pay
Favorite Movies:
Favorite Books:
Favorite Music:
- none I'm always working
- - -
Things NOT to include:
Hobbies and Interests:
- feeding my cocaine addiction
- leather and bondage fetish
- reading slashdot
- - -
My Facebook profile makes me look extremely plain. It is the bare essentials. A personal email contact, my high school and undergraduate information, and a list of some very safe hobbies like 'sports' or 'cooking'. It took me forever to untag all those pictures of me naked on acid.
Re:That's why you make your facebook... (Score:5, Funny)
Hobbies and Interests:
- feeding my cocaine addiction - leather and bondage fetish - reading slashdot
Congratulations, you have the job, can you wear this collar and gimp mask and head on down to the broom closet, ummm, computer room. I will be down to join you momentarily.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So take some persnal responsibility... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What is this personal responsibility thing you speak of? I was told I should demand the government solve all problems for me.
Change your settings (Score:5, Informative)
On facebook you can limit your information to only be accessible to friends, friends of friends or your network. It's quite granular, if your information is accessible by people you don't want it to be then that's your fault for not using the privacy settings that facebook provides.
Reference Checks (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Though personally, I think that is selfish and self-righteous bullshit.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Legal Issues both ways (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He can rant and rave all he likes about how it must be because he's Mormon, or gay, or likes dogs when the HR p