Have hiring practices changed?

[Galaxy]

I've been hearing about how employers are now going to places like Myspace and Facebook to check out potential employees (heard they might even message your friends). Have you seen this in your work place? It seems like the hiring and work place practices have changed (flex time, giving employees more freedom as long as they get the work done).

[jeff061]

I haven't seen it. But I'm sure it is, if I was hiring I'd probably do it(with an open mind). It's quick, easy and free. I don't have a problem with it. It's always amazed me how people are willing to put their personal life on the web to be scrutinized by the world forever.

Though I don't think there is much flex time and freedom change, I imagine if anything its been increased with how easy it is to stay in touch and get work done from anywhere these days.

[stevew]

If you were spending money on hiring people, I'd think it would be wise to explore every avenue possible to find out as much information about the hire as possible.

[Logan]

I don't really understand your connection between using readily available, free resources (the internet) to screen potential employees and the "changing workplace freedoms."

[JonInMiddleGA]

I've heard about the Facebook/MySpace stuff but only second hand. That's also been getting some play in the media lately so it definitely exists, not sure how widespread it really is though.

As for the flex clocks & stuff, I can't say I've picked up on any significant changes in that regard. I see a few more "job shares" (2 sales reps splitting a 40 hour week) maybe than I used to but that's about it.

[Pumpy Tudors]

At my job, managers are actually forbidden from going onto social networking sites to research applicants. As far as things like flex time, unless I have a meeting to attend, I can arrive any time between 7:30am and 10:00am. It is generally encouraged for me to come in between 9:00 and 10:00, which is fine with me. I'm not really a morning person, and it's a 45-minute drive for me, so later is better. As long as my work day lasts for at least 8 hours, nobody cares. The place is casual dress, too, but because of my particular position, I tend to at least wear a polo shirt along with my jeans and sneakers. I'll maybe wear a t-shirt once or twice a month, but that's about it.

Besides those things, I can't think of anything at my job that is less "traditional." Well, except for the fact that I work at a very strange company, but that has nothing to do with the regulations or hiring practices.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Flexible start times and flexible scheduling (for example 4 10 hour days) are available in parts of my company.

I have two younger children, so I am now accustomed to being up early. I am typically the 1st or 2nd person on my floor to arrive, around 7:15. I am almost always gone by 4:00 pm. Other people roll in at 10:00 am.

Job share and some telecommuting is allowed too.

I think that has become more accepted recently as most companies have global customers, or at least across the US, making need for coverage at different hours important to keep customers happy.

It is also a cheap (free?) perk to provide to people you really want to hire/retain.

As far as Facebook, etc, I've never experienced firsthand, but heard of it happening. There is probably loads of legal ramifications should it ever come to light someone was not hired based on something found on the internet, but I also have no problem with companies wanting to hire the "right" person for the job.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Logan

I don't really understand your connection between using readily available, free resources (the internet) to screen potential employees and the "changing workplace freedoms."

I guess my connection was the change in the workplace. I really didn't have a "connection" between the place. Sorry about the confusion.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by jeff061

It's always amazed me how people are willing to put their personal life on the web to be scrutinized by the world forever.

You can always shut down your account. I actually don't have a Myspace account. I don't put anything on my Facebook account in terms of personal info (no contact info of any kind and nothing on no info of any kind in terms of interests, politics, ect.) Heck, I don't even have a picture of myself. As far as friends, I believe you can set up your options so you can't see a person's list of friends without becoming that person's friend.

[jeff061]

You can shut it down. But once it's public its cached and you have no control over it. In any case, I'm speaking very generally, wasn't pointed in your direction at all.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Suburban Rhythm

As far as Facebook, etc, I've never experienced firsthand, but heard of it happening. There is probably loads of legal ramifications should it ever come to light someone was not hired based on something found on the internet, but I also have no problem with companies wanting to hire the "right" person for the job.

I guess the question is, what exactly should an employer be "looking" for?

[MacroGuru]

Do you party heavily? Will there be chances of you coming into work hungover on Monday morning or throughout the week? Will you call in and take the day off due to the drinking?

They tend to look at what you do and also look into you as a person, seeing if you would fit into the corporate culture.../My myspace profile was up, and it is now down when I found my one employer was looking at it. I just recently put it up just so I could be able to see my sisters pics of her trips.

My facebook and linkedin pages are up and I don't have anything to hide on these.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

I guess the question is, what exactly should an employer be "looking" for?

There is a financial company in Pittsburgh whose founder and current CEO ( I believe the founders son) that want to project a certain image. The founding family are devout Catholics. The dress is coat and tie, everyday, period (other companies in the industry in Pittsburgh are all, or nearly all, business casual). I'd imagine this company has a notion of what they want their employees to be, to uphold their image. And I would suspect they may use Facebook to screen candidates.

[Young Drachma]

Anyone who uses those sites with any kind of savvy can ensure that no one can see their profile information without being their friend. Thus, a hiring person would be unlikely to see much of anything. If a person doesn't protect their stuff, that's a different story..but...it can be prevented with minimal effort if someone wants to protect their digital identity.

[Buccaneer]

I don't see how that's legal. Aren't most companies and agencies bounded by equal opportunities, affirmative action and anti-discrimination rules? I have done a lot of interviews and there are a lot of questions we could not ask (e.g., marital status, family situation, health issues, etc.).

[jeff061]

Can't discriminate against pot heads?

[jeff061]

And I appreciate you can't ask those questions. If the places that have hired me knew I was a good 5 years younger than I looked they probably would dismiss me outright .

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Anyone who uses those sites with any kind of savvy can ensure that no one can see their profile information without being their friend. Thus, a hiring person would be unlikely to see much of anything. If a person doesn't protect their stuff, that's a different story..but...it can be prevented with minimal effort if someone wants to protect their digital identity.

I guess this is what I'm getting at. Unless you look at a person's friends list and their picture on the profile, I really don't see how you can a get handle on someone (unless the picture was showing them in a comprising position). You can set your profile to private on Myspace, and not allow for your friends list to be public on facebook when you search for someone.

[jeff061]

Your faith in humanity is much higher than mine. I picture all kinds of idiots out there with self portraits of themseves chugging beers and flashing gang signs, on a public profile. I understand you have the option to privatize things, doesn't mean everyone does.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Your faith in humanity is much higher than mine. I picture all kinds of idiots out there with self portraits of themseves chugging beers and flashing gang signs, on a public profile. I understand you have the option to privatize things, doesn't mean everyone does.

Oh I agree with you. I guess that's funny part that people post stupid pictures and don't take any steps to ensure privacy through the different settings. It's just that it's rather easy to hide your privacy while still maintaining online accounts. It's a pretty good tool for employers.

[stevew]

Messaging peoples friends does seem out of line and borderline illegal.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by stevew

Messaging peoples friends does seem out of line and borderline illegal.

It is a little creepy. What exactly do employers say? Why would anyone respond to them (or at least, wouldn't they contact that friend first before responding)?

[AZSpeechCoach]

Heh heh...that's why I use a stuffed bear as my Facebook persona

[Drake]

We don't go so far as messaging friends, but we definitely Google folks and check out their on-line personas/MySpace/Facebook before hiring. In my office, at least, it isn't anything nefarious. We're an IT shop, and we're less concerned about skillz than about how someone is going to fit into the dynamic of the unit.

In general, interviews are crap for getting a real sense of who someone is, because everyone is on their best behavior. The interview tells us what you know and what kind of work you're capable of. We figure we can train any moderately intelligent person to do the job, but finding someone who's going to mesh well with the personality of the office is much harder.

(So, yeah, if your MySpace page is covered with "Jesus Loves the Little Children" gifs, rainbows and unicorns, chances are we're going to have to pass. It isn't about what you know. It really is that we just don't like you.)

[Buccaneer]

I'm glad some of you are willing to flaunt US EEOC laws. You do realize that the following questions (taken from a university site) are inappropriate?

How many children do you have?

What country are your parents from?


What is your native language?


What is your height? What is your weight?

How old are you?


What church do you go to? What religion are you?


Are you a United States citizen?


Do you have any disabilities?


Have you ever undergone psychiatric evaluation?


Are you dating anyone right now?


What clubs or organizations do you belong to?


What is your maiden name?


What is your race?

In other words, If It's Not Job-Related -- Don't Ask. Even digging for such information would be grounds for a lawsuit, claiming discrimination.

[MikeVic]

I read an article that said it's alright to put personal information up on a social networking site for employers to see. The article interviewed some hiring managers and they said that on more than one occasion, they could see the person's personality and tell whether they would fit into the culture of the work place.

edit: with one person, it was negative since the person was into witchcraft or something and the work place didn't have people like that. With another person, they were a bit older but their profile showed them liking youthful activities and made the person seem like they "live" younger... so it helped them.

[Mustang]

Could be worse. They could ask if you like taking pictures around shiny objects and then hunt you down on reflectoporn...

[Galaxy]

Here's what some sites found on Tim Russert's son facebook page a while back:

hxxp://gawker.com/news/education/the-children-of-the-media-elite-luke-russert-134146.php (May not be best for work).

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I'm glad some of you are willing to flaunt US EEOC laws. You do realize that the following questions (taken from a university site) are inappropriate?



In other words, If It's Not Job-Related -- Don't Ask. Even digging for such information would be grounds for a lawsuit, claiming discrimination.

Sure, asking the questions is inappropriate. Tracking that information down from public sources (i.e., the internets) isn't.

The lesson here is that people need to learn not to be stupid with their personal information. If you put it on the internet, you make it de facto public knowledge and open yourself up to scrutiny.

Edit to add: I also don't get up in arms about my employer discriminating against people not-like-us (i.e., folks who don't seem like they'd fit well into our office dynamic). I like where I work because of the people I work with. When you throw someone into that mix that doesn't mesh well, morale tends to drop. My morale is at least as important to me as employment is to the person wanting the empty cubicle next to me. Give me the added workload over a soul-sucking choad cubicle mate any day.

[jeff061]

I just had an interview with a company. The job application had two reference sections, personal and professional. Personal seems to me to be solely for the type of information you'd be looking to get off the internet.

But in this case it was right there on the application. This is a relatively high level and high paying job. And this place appeared to be the most "by the books" interview process I've been through, with heavy HR influence, I usually am just run by the tech guys.

I have to imagine they know what they are doing. Or maybe I just misinterpreted the use of a "personal reference". But if they were not allowed to do this someone would be calling them on it.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by jeff061

I just had an interview with a company. The job application had two reference sections, personal and professional. Personal seems to me to be solely for the type of information you'd be looking to get off the internet.

But in this case it was right there on the application. This is a relatively high level and high paying job. And this place appeared to be the most "by the books" interview process I've been through, with heavy HR influence, I usually am just run by the tech guys.

I have to imagine they know what they are doing. Or maybe I just misinterpreted the use of a "personal reference". But if they were not allowed to do this someone would be calling them on it.

I might be wrong, but I'd think a personal reference would be a person with whom you don't have a profesional relationship, but would vouch for your qualities that would make you a good candidate. For example-- priest/pastor, professor, or someone you had a connection with during a volunteer activity.

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

I read an article that said it's alright to put personal information up on a social networking site for employers to see. The article interviewed some hiring managers and they said that on more than one occasion, they could see the person's personality and tell whether they would fit into the culture of the work place.

edit: with one person, it was negative since the person was into witchcraft or something and the work place didn't have people like that. With another person, they were a bit older but their profile showed them liking youthful activities and made the person seem like they "live" younger... so it helped them.

I feel this should have no beaing on hiring practices. So what is a candidate was into witchcraft as long as they keep that part of their life out of their workpace. Now if they blogged about performing rituals at their desk, that would be a different story.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

I feel this should have no beaing on hiring practices. So what is a candidate was into witchcraft as long as they keep that part of their life out of their workpace. Now if they blogged about performing rituals at their desk, that would be a different story.

I think you're right- what people do in their own damn home on their own damn time is their own damn business.

However, we give great powers to companies and we allow them to make decisions such as the following: "Will it hurt my company if I have a witchcraft practicer". Next thing you know, there's a story on tv about how Company X has "witchcraft practicers" working for them and how certain groups of people are going to boycot the business. In short it all makes a giant PR mess that hurts the business because a person working for a company does something outside of work that "reflects poorly" on the company.

Even better, try "child molester" instead of "witchcraft practicer" and assume the aforementioned person has done their time in prison, dotted all of their i's and crossed their t's- they're a model citizen but in the past were arrested for child molestation.

I'm not saying it's right at all. In fact it's wrong, but that's how people thing, particularly in this day and age when you can find out a lot of things about a person just by looking them up online.

SI

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I think you're right- what people do in their own damn home on their own damn time is their own damn business.

However, we give great powers to companies and we allow them to make decisions such as the following: "Will it hurt my company if I have a witchcraft practicer". Next thing you know, there's a story on tv about how Company X has "witchcraft practicers" working for them and how certain groups of people are going to boycot the business. In short it all makes a giant PR mess that hurts the business because a person working for a company does something outside of work that "reflects poorly" on the company.

Even better, try "child molester" instead of "witchcraft practicer" and assume the aforementioned person has done their time in prison, dotted all of their i's and crossed their t's- they're a model citizen but in the past were arrested for child molestation.

I'm not saying it's right at all. In fact it's wrong, but that's how people thing, particularly in this day and age when you can find out a lot of things about a person just by looking them up online.

SI

There is a bit of a reach though in comparing an illegal activity with one that is not. We're talking about information retrieved from blog sites. To tie the two examples together this person would have to be blogging about being a child molester and if that were the case I have no problem with that raising a red flag.

Unless the person is going to be in a position where theyare going to be under the microscope for everything they do (positions which are few and far between), there should be no reason that legal personal activities should have any affect on that person getting a job (as long as the person does not allow that to interfere with their performance).

What if the potential employer haters football and finds that you post on a football website in your free time? What if the potential employer hates dogs and finds on your site that you have 3 dogs? This is taking things to a personal level which should have nothing to do with the person's qualifications.

As for the arguement others have made about seeing if the person "fits in", what does anything posted on a web site have to do with demonstrating if a person "fits in"? Just because a person posts something on a web site it demontrates nothing about how that person fits into a workplace environment (unless what was posted is that he (or she) has fantasies about killing everyone in the office).

People are much more aggressive on what they feel are anonymous sites than what they are in person (this extends to sites like MySpace as well where many are trying to 'play the part' thinking they are impressing someone).

This opens up a very problematic slippery slope arguement.

[sterlingice]

I agree with the sentiment that personal activities should have no bearing on finding employment but I wanted to set up a devil's advocate counterexample, as it were. That was why I made sure to point out that the theoretical "child molester" had served his time and was a perfectly law-abiding citizen because I knew someone would get caught up in that.

But, again, my example remains: child molester, rehabilitated and no longer engages in said action, having paid debt to society. This person is interviewing at a place of employment that doesn't involve kids (i.e. not school, daycare, etc) yet is discovered on a sex offenders list.

SI

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I agree with the sentiment that personal activities should have no bearing on finding employment but I wanted to set up a devil's advocate counterexample, as it were. That was why I made sure to point out that the theoretical "child molester" had served his time and was a perfectly law-abiding citizen because I knew someone would get caught up in that.

But, again, my example remains: child molester, rehabilitated and no longer engages in said action, having paid debt to society. This person is interviewing at a place of employment that doesn't involve kids (i.e. not school, daycare, etc) yet is discovered on a sex offenders list.

SI

I see what you are saying except there is still a bit of difference as at least what that person did was something illegal. Though I do feel that should only come into play if what the person did can somehow tie into the job they are looking for (example working at a shool, or someone who was convicted for embezzlement and is now looking for a job where they will have access to company finances).

[Daimyo]

I google all candidates and according to my HR rep this is not only allowed, but encouraged. Not really looking for anything specific, its more about seeing how people present themselves.

Linkedin seems to have a lot of potential for finding connections (and reliable references), but I wouldn't contact them without the permission of the candidate.

[Buccaneer]

I'll have to ask our HR to see if different rules apply to governmental and enterprise entities.

[Subby]

I try and trick our hot interns into friending me on Facebook, but that's about it.

And when I say trick, I mean allow.

[jeff061]

I've had a few interviews over the last month. I'm actually pretty shocked no one has found their way to my website. I'm very easy to find if you know my name, they just haven't been looking. While references have been called.

[Glengoyne]

I've certainly heard of this happening. The Myspace review of a candidate's site. One of the managers at my company has commented that one or two candidates should really think twice about what they have placed on their Myspace pages.

I certainly don't think it is off limits.

I have heard of people's blogs getting them into trouble at work.

One guy had a blog dedicated to religion and divorce. In it he documented his response to a garnishment of his wages for child support. He explicitly listed the company in the blog. Someone found it, and he was asked to remove the direct reference to the company name.

I'm actually not sure of the grounds the company would have to pursue that course of action, but I imagine this kind of thing is going to become more common.

[Grammaticus]

I'm surprised that any of you actually think anything you do on the internet is private. If you are posting something on a public networking site, expect it to be seen by anyone at any time. I think one of you even posted something to the effect of employers not having any business in what goes on in your home. The internet is NOT the privacy of your home.

Buc, posting your married and have kids on a website is not the same as an employer asking you the question. More like you walking into a job interview wearing a wedding ring and having a youth soccer sticker with your kids name and number on your portfolio.

At the end of the day, the employer should not use that information to disqualify you as a candidate. The employer can ask you if you can work overtime or do you have any issues outside of work that would limit your availability. If so, when are you not available. How you answer is up to you. You don't have to bring up kids and family, but most people do. They also get hired.

Also, lots of employers conduct background checks and give drug tests. All perfectly leagal options.

[Grammaticus]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

I've certainly heard of this happening. The Myspace review of a candidate's site. One of the managers at my company has commented that one or two candidates should really think twice about what they have placed on their Myspace pages.

I certainly don't think it is off limits.

I have heard of people's blogs getting them into trouble at work.

One guy had a blog dedicated to religion and divorce. In it he documented his response to a garnishment of his wages for child support. He explicitly listed the company in the blog. Someone found it, and he was asked to remove the direct reference to the company name.

I'm actually not sure of the grounds the company would have to pursue that course of action, but I imagine this kind of thing is going to become more common.

Garnishing wages is not something an employer has an option over. Although, there is a federal law that allows the employer to terminate an employee if they have more than a certain number of garnishments. I think it may be two, meaning they can terminate your employment because you have more than one garnishment. I'm not sure without looking it up.

[Galaxy]

Just curious,

What's the proper way to address a female, if you don't know their martial status, in a letter and e-mail. Is it Ms.? Miss?

[MikeVic]

Dear Sexy Knickers.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

Dear Sexy Knickers.

I need to see a picture of her first.

[samifan24]

It's Ms.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by samifan24

It's Ms.

Thanks. That's what I figured, but I wanted to make sure.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by samifan24

It's Ms.

Yup.