Employment Application Question

[daughtersrus]

These questions are on an employment application...

1. Do you have a social networking website, or public networking site? If yes, please provide the access and web address(es) information:

2. Have you made or authorized any other public internet postings during the past 12 months of your image (picture), name, and/or commentary?

The applicant has a Facebook account and is willing to let the prospective employer access it but it is blocked to anyone not on the "friend" list. How would you answer the questions?

Edited to add... this is an application for a teaching position in a public school district

 

[Hoodie]

These questions are on an employment application...

1. Do you have a social networking website, or public networking site? If yes, please provide the access and web address(es) information:

2. Have you made or authorized any other public internet postings during the past 12 months of your image (picture), name, and/or commentary?

The applicant has a Facebook account and is willing to let the prospective employer access it but it is blocked to anyone not on the "friend" list. How would you answer the questions?

Honestly, they sound like questions that shouldn't be asked. I certainly wouldn't give them access as "friends" and wouldn't change my security settings.

Asking for pictures before interviewing or offering a position could lead the company liable for an EOE suit.

 

[bettymae1121]

I wouldn't want to work for a company that asked those questions, unless the position requried some sort of security clearance and it was nessesary for a background check.

 

[daughtersrus]

I wouldn't want to work for a company that asked those questions, unless the position requried some sort of security clearance and it was nessesary for a background check.

I edited the original post. This is an application for a teaching position in a suburban public school district.

 

[FireDancer]

Whether they ask or not they are going to go looking. Many places will do some searching on Google and Facebook for perspective employees. I don't think they should force you to friend them but if you have a wide open page they will go look at it.

As to how I would address it, I would say I have a Facebook account and here is the address. They could then see what they can see per my current privacy settings. Whether I give it to them or not they could easily find the information with a search. For the second question I would say I belong to Internet message boards but would not provide which ones.

Yet another reason I never put anything online I wouldn't want a perspective employer to see. I wouldn't friend them, but I wouldn't hide anything either that was already available.

 

[Sarah_Rose]

I can see that as being relevant to a school district. I haven't taught in a school in more than 3 years now, but I still have former students look me up and try to friend me occasionally. I always "ignore" the requests and make sure that the info that is available to be seen publically is something that I wouldn't mind a student seeing. Ie. my profile picture is a picture of me in Epcot with my WDW marathon medals, no pictures of me drinking or doing anything else "questionable", and my personal info is all "non-personal". If that makes any sense.

I would just put down my Facebook profile URL but I wouldn't change my friend settings at all. The school board just wants to see what a student would see if they tried to look you up.

 

[mamacatnv]

I really do not believe whether or not I have a FB account is anyones business nor is it relevant to whether or not I am qualified to do a job.

 

[Barbossa]

This is one of many reasons why I don't use social networking sites.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

Whether they ask or not they are going to go looking. Many places will do some searching on Google and Facebook for perspective employees. I don't think they should force you to friend them but if you have a wide open page they will go look at it.

As to how I would address it, I would say I have a Facebook account and here is the address. They could then see what they can see per my current privacy settings. Whether I give it to them or not they could easily find the information with a search. For the second question I would say I belong to Internet message boards but would not provide which ones.

Yet another reason I never put anything online I wouldn't want a perspective employer to see. I wouldn't friend them, but I wouldn't hide anything either that was already available.

When we are hiring one of the first things I do if I'm considering the applicant is google them - name, address, phone number, email address - what ever info I have, I'm using it to see what may come up.

Never, ever put anything online that you wouldn't want your employer or your grandmother to see/read

 

[NotUrsula]

A new tactic I've heard of recently is asking the applicant to open the Facebook page on a computer owned by the employer, in the HR rep's presence. If there is a keylogger on the machine, then you've just given up your username and password, so anytime you are asked to do this, if you do it, go in and change your password to something totally different the minute the interview is over. (Also, of course, anticipate being asked, so tidy up and lock down your FB settings before going on any interviews.)

The Washington Post recently had a live discussion on this topic. Another issue brought up by some posters was the question of whether or not it hurts you not to have a FB page (or to claim that you don't.)

 

[Sarah_Rose]

I really do not believe whether or not I have a FB account is anyones business nor is it relevant to whether or not I am qualified to do a job.

When you're working with students, I think it is 100% relevant to the job. How many school districts have ended up with complaints/lawsuits regarding improper conduct between students and teachers? The school board wants to minimize the chance of them hiring someone who will "get in trouble" and how you present yourself on a social network is a great indicator of how you conduct yourself socially. I would like to think that a school board would skip over an applicant that had a picture of themselves drinking from a beer bong in Mexico as their Facebook profile picture. The students (particularly junior high students, in my experience) WILL find that picture at some point.... and that is exactly what the school board does not want.

 

[NotUrsula]

When we are hiring one of the first things I do if I'm considering the applicant is google them - name, address, phone number, email address - what ever info I have, I'm using it to see what may come up.

Never, ever put anything online that you wouldn't want your employer or your grandmother to see/read

One of things that some employers will use in this context is your history of political contributions. I know at least two people who got dropped from consideration for jobs when the prospective employer found out that they supported liberal candidates. (FTR, to prevent this becoming a political comment, I'm sure that it happens the other way around, too; I just happen to have mostly liberal friends.)

PS: No, it isn't illegal. Political affiliation is not a protected class. Employers normally cannot ASK you this question, but if you leave the info out there to be found, they are perfectly within their rights to use it to discriminate against you.)

 

[Barbossa]

Never, ever put anything online that you wouldn't want your employer or your grandmother to see/read

One pitfall of sites like Facebook is that you often can't control what other people post to your site. Nothing like a friend posting a compromising photo of you to your site the morning of your job interview. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. for exactly this reason.

 

[Barbossa]

I know at least two people who got dropped from consideration for jobs when the prospective employer found out that they supported liberal candidates.

This sounds illegal.

 

[NotUrsula]

One pitfall of sites like Facebook is that you often can't control what other people post to your site. Nothing like a friend posting a compromising photo of you to your site the morning of your job interview. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. for exactly this reason.

Or posting that group photo to THEIR OWN sites. My DH, who is an attorney, routinely follows FB "friend trails" looking for compromising photographs of plaintiffs who have what seem to be suspicious disability claims; he finds them more often than not. Taking the photos down doesn't help unless you do it well in advance; it's easy to find cached copies of pages using Google.

 

[NMAmy]

One pitfall of sites like Facebook is that you often can't control what other people post to your site. Nothing like a friend posting a compromising photo of you to your site the morning of your job interview. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. for exactly this reason.

I can't think of one person who actually HAS a compromising photo of me. I don't have anything on my Facebook page that I wouldn't want my elderly mom and my aunts and my dd to read--which works out well since they're all my friends on Facebook.

 

[happygirl]

Yes, I think those are legit question for the application for what you are applying for.

 

[Wonders10]

When you're working with students, I think it is 100% relevant to the job. How many school districts have ended up with complaints/lawsuits regarding improper conduct between students and teachers? The school board wants to minimize the chance of them hiring someone who will "get in trouble" and how you present yourself on a social network is a great indicator of how you conduct yourself socially. I would like to think that a school board would skip over an applicant that had a picture of themselves drinking from a beer bong in Mexico as their Facebook profile picture. The students (particularly junior high students, in my experience) WILL find that picture at some point.... and that is exactly what the school board does not want.

I work in the school system and I am a relatively new hire. I was never asked to provide any sort of personal website, social networking site links, etc. Never discussed at all. That being said, I don't have anything on mine that is damaging, maybe personal to an extent - more like inside jokes and things. But nothing inappropriate or damaging. I do have pictures in albums from my trips to Epcot and drinking around the world but my page is private and you must be a friend to see more than my name and my profile picture which is of me and my dog at the moment. I can think of a few teachers I work with though who have some very inappropriate pictures on theirs and I bet their students' parents would be appalled to see their child's teacher in that light.

 

[Becky2005]

One pitfall of sites like Facebook is that you often can't control what other people post to your site. Nothing like a friend posting a compromising photo of you to your site the morning of your job interview. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. for exactly this reason.

Except your friend could still do that whether you have an account there or NOT and if I'm not mistaken they could still put your name on your image there. Now, I don't know if anyone could search it or not but I know I have pictures up of people who aren't on Facebook because they happen to be in the group photo (not inappropriate, just that they are there).

Then again I found out the hard way early on in my daughter's Freshman year, that if the kids aren't on Facebook they have no idea what is going on with their school club events. I'm sure it's not officially done that way but it sure is unofficially.

 

[FireDancer]

One pitfall of sites like Facebook is that you often can't control what other people post to your site. Nothing like a friend posting a compromising photo of you to your site the morning of your job interview. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. for exactly this reason.

Yes you can. Anything posted to your wall can be removed. Also, you can remove your tag from any picture posted by a friend. Lastly, when you decide to start looking for a job you could make your wall and photos viewable to friends only.

Yes, they can still post it but they can do that whether you have Facebook or not. I could post a picture of you on a website and put the correct meta data in it for it to show on a Google image search whether you have Facebook (or even a computer) or not.

As for the political candidate thing, I make sure not to post anything overly political on my pages. Nothing on either side of most hot button issues. I post about technology issues but most are not emotional enough to cause any problem.