Social Networking Sites Getting Risky For Recruiting 227
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."
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.
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.
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not. You sound like an asshole. ;-)
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 ;) ).
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: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.
Re:Just because they say they don't (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 father was an employer, not so many years ago, HE might have judged you on how friendly you are over a beer after 5:00, or for that matter whether you knew any good off-color jokes.
Things have changed a lot, and not always for the better. My advice for HR departments: lighten up, or eventually there will be a rebound effect, and you will be lightened up. Your paychecks, anyway.
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why does he sound like an asshole? I don't get that impression.
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (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: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.
Re:Google your future employees (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand anything of what you are trying to say here, and how it relates to my post.
Re:Social networking sites should file suits (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As a hiring manager, I really hate HR! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I was just kidding, but now that you mention it, he does sound like kind of an asshole.
Discrimination isn't always bad (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's a scenario:
Say I apply for a job by sending in my resume. Prominently featured in 48pt font just above my name are the words, "I'm Mormon and Proud of It!" Let's say, hypothetically, that I don't get the job. Is the company liable for discriminating against me because they are in possession of knowledge of the fact that I am a Mormon and subsequently didn't hire me? Of course not.
This is just an employer being overly cautious because it doesn't think that the information about potential employees that can be gleaned from Facebook is all that valuable. And maybe it's not. If an applicant is an obvious douchebag on Facebook, he's probably a douchebag during an interview as well.
Besides all that, "discrimination" isn't an across-the-board no-no. Only certain things are illegal if used to discriminate in hiring. Like race, age, national origin, sex, etc. Discriminating against a person (i.e. not hiring him or her) for being a moron, possessing an unimpressive resume, or publicly displaying yourself as a drunkard on social networking sites is EXACTLY the kind of discrimination in which hiring companies SHOULD be engaging.
Re:Social networking sites should file suits (Score:1, Insightful)
and with that, the facebook takes its next victim.
well played facebook. You almost have to admire the cunning.
Re:Where does this impulse to sue come from? (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 person likes cats, or whatever, but he has no way of proving that. Even if he somehow managed to get it to court, the employer just has to say "We found someone else, that's all," and that's the end of it.
You say it's easy to convince a courtroom that you were the subject of discrimination, but I disagree. I think it'd be nearly impossible to prove, because the employer can come up with any number of reasons you didn't get the job. Honestly, they can say something like "Well, I didn't like the color of the shirt he was wearing in the interview." They'd look like loonies, but there'd be nothing illegal about it, and I can't see a legal way to argue against it.
Re:Makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
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".
Re:Google your future employees (Score:2, Insightful)
Often times the information is taken outside of the domain it was intended for.
A classic example of that is Usenet. It was clearly intended for users generally using newsreaders, with posts expiring after a time period depending on the specific server retention period. It was obviously never supposed to have posts archived 10, 15, or 20 years later (first DejaNews archiving posts, then Google Groups backfilling the archive from other users' private archive sources). Based on that, Googling someone and then turning them down now for something controversial written multiple years ago has no relevance on how they may behave today. Furthermore, if the Usenet post wasn't written from one of their previous employers then it really has no relevance to their work ethic on the job whatsoever. On top of all that, do these managers have sufficient knowledge to determine if a post is authentic vs. forged?
Same goes for Facebook, MySpace, etc. Yeah, the information is public in a sense that anyone can technically see it, but it really is intended for friends and acquaintences to access it, and so a hiring manager that is going to base their preliminary decision on a narrow Google search (i.e., seeing what the search results return without understanding the full context) is certainly not a friend of any kind. Also, as has already been brought up, a person can end up on one of those sites by photo tagging, even if they have no actual social networking site... but again, do these managers have sufficient knowledge to determine if the photo is genuine or photoshopped?
Alternatively, such a hiring manager should at least have the decency and the integrity to let the job candidate know that they were disqualified due to what was Googled, even to the point of providing specific links so they may be aware of the information that may exist that they may or may not know about. Hiding behind generic and even dishonest statements such as another qualified candidate was found, or providing no response at all--it just tends to show that the hiring manager is, in fact, far worse of a person in terms of character and lack of integrity than the candidate that was rejected due to being Googled.
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.
Re:Makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
because companies (big ones in particular) have to carefully craft standard forms and questions for HR purposes that their lawyers "guarantee" will follow all the applicable discrimination laws, in all the states. Sticking to the forms keeps the company out of dutch.
Going "off-script" to Myspace is just begging for trouble because your company already made a policy about what items you were using for job determination. In short why are you snooping other than to verify the facts on the pre-approved forms the applicant filled out?
Re:Just because they say they don't (Score:2, 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 ;) ).
There seems to be a false dichotomy here that says that you're either not on facebook, or all of your most private information is known to everyone. Being on a social networking site doesn't mean you have to divulge all of your personal information.