Should Job Seekers Tell Employers To Quit Snooping? 681
onehitwonder writes in with a CIO opinion piece arguing that potential employees need to stand up to employers who snoop the Web for insights into their after-work activities, often disqualifying them as a result. "Employers are increasingly trolling the web for information about prospective employees that they can use in their hiring decisions. Consequently, career experts advise job seekers to not post any photos, opinions or information on blogs and social networking websites (like Slashdot) that a potential employer might find remotely off-putting. Instead of cautioning job seekers to censor their activity online, we job seekers and defenders of our civil liberties should tell employers to stop snooping and to stop judging our behavior outside of work, writes CIO.com Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson. By basing professional hiring decisions on candidates' personal lives and beliefs, employers are effectively legislating people's behavior, and they're creating an online environment where people can't express their true beliefs, state their unvarnished opinions, be themselves, and that runs contrary to the free, communal ethos of the Web. Employers that exploit the Web to snoop into and judge people's personal lives infringe on everyone's privacy, and their actions verge on discrimination."
No, they don't (Score:4, Insightful)
"... and their actions verge on discrimination."
No, legal terms have legislated meanings, ad you don't get to make them up as you go along. Googling someone to see if they're a Nazi child molester on the no-fly list is perfectly legal, and as a hiring manager, you can bet I'm going to keep doing it.
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I going to sacrifice my own career for this cause? No.
While they shouldn't snoop, It isn't going to stop. Don't you snoop out your potential employers?
Just don't let any non-friends see your Facebook.
Go look for another job. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if employers are breaking into your private disk space, that's different...
Maybe I'll post this anonymously, so it can't be used against me...
If it's public it isn't snooping. (Score:5, Insightful)
The subject line says it all - if it's public, it isn't snooping.
Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I'm an employer. Welcome to well-rounded individuals. Try writing good things around the web, and perhaps your potential employers will prefer you because of your life. Write crap, and don't be surprised.
But really, are you going to turn down a job offer because the potential employer searched for you? You can "tell" potential employers that you don't want them snooping, but that doesn't give them any negative for doing so -- you'll still accept the job offer.
But you do have boat-loads of control over your own personal freedom and civil liberties. If you don't want others to judge you, you get to be the judge. Start your own business, and run it any way you choose.
But if you're looking to benefit from someone else's proven model, someone else's money, and someone else's risk, then yeah your liberties are going to go unrespected because you're the one throwing them away.
You want liberty, take a look at what it's like to have complete freedom over a business of your own. You'll find that it ain't liberating in the ways that you were hoping.
By the way, it's excellent, and it's amazing, and I love every minute of it -- now I own and operate two and a half businesses because it's so great.
As always, take the risk, stake your life, then you can have it your way. You want to be an employee, and have your employer tell you what to do and even pay your taxes for you (well, most of them anyway), then you'd better believe that employer is going to look into you.
Besides, what's this liberty on the web crap? Public domain is the name of the game.
Employers Aren't Interested in the "Web Ethos" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to understand a simple concept: if you wouldn't feel comfortable saying something in front of a packed auditorium, you probably shouldn't say it in a public forum online. I absolutely defend an individual's right to express his views as he sees fit; similarly, I absolutely defend an employer's right to base his hiring decision on all publicly available information.
For some, increased transparency is a good thing. For others, it may prove more a hindrance. It's up to the individual to be conscious of how public actions may impact future opportunities.
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
No, legal terms have legislated meanings, ad you don't get to make them up as you go along.
I don't find it difficult to deal with the use of the word 'discrimination' outside a strict legal definition (and IAAL). Moreover, the text did say "verge on discrimination. (On a side note, not all legal terms have legislated meaning, some have meaning at common law :P)
Googling someone to see if they're a Nazi child molester on the no-fly list is perfectly legal, and as a hiring manager, you can bet I'm going to keep doing it.
Or to see whether they are Christian, collect stamps as a hobby, etc etc etc.
In any case, if you are going to be so stubborn about infringing on our privacy, we are just going to have to pass legislation criminalising your behaviour, aren't we?
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to understand a simple concept: if you wouldn't feel comfortable saying something in front of a packed auditorium, you probably shouldn't say it in a public forum online.
Absolutely. If you're comfortable voicing the opinions you put online anywhere else, then you're probably going to be miserable working for a company that refuses to hire you based on those opinions. If you're an asshat who likes to piss people off, then you're not likely to be working for anyone too long, anyway.
I'm not a big fan of the trend towards using online personas against people, but I see it as a reverse filtering effect. "You don't like me. I don't like you. Glad we know this now."
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, if you are going to be so stubborn about infringing on our privacy, we are just going to have to pass legislation criminalising your behaviour, aren't we?
But how will you know if a firm passed you over because of something you said online? It'd be impossible to enforce.
It's just best not to worry about it. Firms who discriminate against people who aren't ashamed of their life and like to talk openly about it will wind up full of drones leaving all the creative people to assemble elsewhere. I hope.
Not going to happen (Score:3, Insightful)
It's next to impossible to determine why a potential employee was not hired unless you have a telepath handy. So no matter how many rules and guidelines and whatnot you draft up, you can't stop people doing it. A typical example has been landlord and tenants - many people have a spare apartment and rent that out. Now in aggregate it's fairly obvious to see that there's some discrimination going on, but trying to somehow prove racism from a landlord choosing one tenant just never happens. Only if there's a repeated pattern of some clearly identifiable trait do you have a shot at it. Obviously a hiring manager is hiring a lot of people so you got quantity. You could probably pick up on him never hiring blacks or woman or people he suspects to be muslims or gays. But proving him disqualifying a very non-specific group of people on vastly different reasons he found online? Not happening.
I'm not trying to argue the morality of it, surely they should leave things alone unless it got good reason to impact your work relationship. But 99% of the time you won't even know you've been victim of it, and even if you do 99% of the time you couldn't prove it. A long shot lawsuit against a corporation for not hiring you, while you're presumably busy seeking other jobs and burning through your nest egg already? Please. The closest thing you can hope for is that these companies miss out on a lot of great talent and that the market will even it out a bit. For you personally it's still the far better option to keep your private life private.
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
"Just don't let any non-friends see your Facebook."
Alright. Don't ever stop being friends with them. Don't allow them to post photos of you elsewhere.
Better advice? Stay the hell off Facebook, now and forever.
Protected classes (Score:4, Insightful)
But how will you know if a firm passed you over because of something you said online? It'd be impossible to enforce.
Unfortunately, that's not true. It seems to make sense that there is no way that one could know why an employer did something. But certain legislators don't think that way.
For a number of classes of people ( genders, ethnic groups, etc ) the mere act of not having the right number of people of a certain class can be construed as proof that there was discrimination.
So, someday, after you have posted a picture of yourself butt-naked sharing a twelve-pack with your buddies outside the local convent, and you remain unemployed, you will be able to sue. All you will have to show is that X percent of the population does such things, and if a particular employer has significantly less than X percent of such people among their employees, they are therefore guilty of discrimination.
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
This is where I get to call you a pansy for not standing up for yourself and get away with it because it's on topic.
You don't even need a real tyrant to muzzle you -- you'll settle for an imaginary one.
I wonder what a prospective employer might think of the value of your input after that -- at least one worth working for.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it good to take a stand? Yes.
Am I going to sacrifice my own career for this cause? No.
Damn. I thought I was going to get that job after you announced you were taking a stand.
"It's good for you to take a stand. Good for me, that is."
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:3, Insightful)
That argument does not work well in a recession. Besides, even during economically good times, quitting your job may be not viable for a host of reasons, like having the only available job in little town, the only job close to significant other, being a PhD and thus overqualified for most jobs, working in a "non-essential" field of work (like IT is in the heads of some PHBs), and so on.
This is the kind of issue for which there should be a strong union of IT workers. A lone crusader simply loses the job, a union could actually get results home. I am also aware, however, that unions are not culturally very popular in the US, and that even if a law banning this snooping were to be passed it would be unenforceable anyway.
I guess creating a parallel Web identity, using PGP signatures and gizmos, would probably simpler to implement and more robust. But would a prospective employer hire someone who seems to have been living off the grid?
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, those of us who have opted to not have children (so far? who the hell knows) will always find it easier to stand on their principles. Welcome to Lifestyles of the Rich and Childless.
Obligatory xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Employers Aren't Interested in the "Web Ethos" (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, unless you are a public figure then why do you have to put your real name out there along with whatever it is that you say? Use a pseudonym and say what you want, but be careful to never connect it or allow it to be connected to your real name ever. First rule of the web: never provide your real identity when a fake will do.
Because it's really, really hard to compartmentalize your life that way. There's a reason the government runs into a million miles of red tape when they do. For example, it's pretty hard not to talk so much about yourself that you could verify whether a suspected person is or is not the one hiding under this nick. That makes it quite dangerous even if they can do nothing more than to hook your pseudonyms up with the pseudonyms of your friends. Let me try to make an example:
Say you're part of a small WoW clan with your real life friends. Obviously your friends know your real identity but they won't reveal it and you don't need the WoW world at large to know so you use a pseudonym and since it's a gaming forum you never really tell much about yourself. And you post on slashdot under the same pseudonym. Then in some post you mention in a comment to a gaming article that you played in a WoW guild with friends.
Now comes an asshat, searches your slashdot history, finds that reference and the nicks of the others in the clan. No biggie, nothing much interesting there. But then he digs on their nicks, and they've been a bit careless and sloppy, finding their real names hooked to those nicks. Using that it's not so hard to find real world connections, and among them there's you. So far it's really all speculation on using the same nick and whatever but then he starts matching the real life with your slashdot posts and if it's a match he posts it up. Game over, everything you ever said on slashdot is now linked to your real world identity even though you've been really careful. And any other pseudonym you ever linked to your slashdot identity again and so on.
I don't think what I've described here is so unusual - you have your real life persona, you have your pure online identities but then you have all these places where you meet somewhere in the middle like a pseudonymous blog about real life and online communities with real life friends. Unless you're really, really careful they will link all of this together and these are like dams that can only be broken, never rebuilt. And most people don't realize until the tidal wave is coming.
Re:Absoutely correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to understand a simple concept: if you wouldn't feel comfortable saying something in front of a packed auditorium, you probably shouldn't say it in a public forum online. I absolutely defend an individual's right to express his views as he sees fit; similarly, I absolutely defend an employer's right to base his hiring decision on all publicly available information.
Shouldn't they be looking at, say, your ability to do the job and stay the fuck away from your personal life?
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you're looking to benefit from someone else's proven model, someone else's money, and someone else's risk, then yeah your liberties are going to go unrespected because you're the one throwing them away.
I take exception to this remark; you're saying that only business owners get to have human rights - which is unvarnished bullshit.
I work as a sysadmin in a private school. This is advantageous for both of us; they get a specialized person who can do a job no-one else there can, and I get to spend all my time working on the job I'm good at, instead of spending half my time on drumming up business and paperwork.
I've worked for big companies, I've worked for small companies, I've even run a my own (very small) company. As an employer, you get to judge me on my public life; that's why it's public. You don't get to dig up my private and family life as bluntly, it's none of your damn business. I don't give up my right of free speech and right to privacy (which IS a human right in the EU) just because you pay me money to do work you can't.
Re:Obligatory xkcd (Score:1, Insightful)
Stupid urge to express online has nothing to do with fulfilling dreams. That strip is naive and overly dramatic.
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
the fact that you posted as "Anonymous Coward" should answer your question here. lets say your name is "Bob Smith" for example, now someone else, whom you don't like perhaps, purchases the domain name www.bobsmith.com and makes a site all about how you are recruiting for "young gay men who are willing to let themselves be eaten alive" or whatever would make you look bad. is it fair that an employer can now judge you based on this?
The problem is the internet is anonymous
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:2, Insightful)
Employers that exploit the Web to snoop into and judge people's personal lives infringe on everyone's privacy, and their actions verge on discrimination.
Unless the employer gains access to non-publicized information, e.g. hacks your computer or somesuch, YOU put the information out there for all to see.
Nobody forced you to do it.
as a previous poster wrote:
People need to understand a simple concept: if you wouldn't feel comfortable saying something in front of a packed auditorium, you probably shouldn't say it in a public forum online.
Freedom of information is not just for when it suits your needs, boys & girls.
as this becomes common knowledge, and with a little luck, hopefully i'll stop finding goatse pics of my employees...
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would never "check up" on the personal life of any employee, prospective or hired. And I've torn up contracts with companies who think it's somehow alright for them to not only research the personal lives of MY employees, but also to discuss their (negative) opinions of their private lives with me.
As a result, the churn around these parts is very close to zero. I don't have to spend a fortune training new employees all the time. I don't have to pay anyone exorbitant salaries to keep them honest and loyal. And I've managed to assemble a rock-solid, brilliant team who individually may or may not be involved in some pretty weird shit after work.
But it's none of my business. I don't care, because the whole point of business is to make money. Whether or not Jonas or Pip are doing bonghits with shorn goats whilst listening to devil music in their underpants after work is none of my concern at all, so long as they do their job, do it well, and get everything done on time.
It's all I ask, and it's precisely what I get.
Re:Absoutely correct (Score:2, Insightful)
This is my feeling exactly.
DONT POST PICTURES OF YOURSELF SNORTING COCAINE!
Or... even better... don't go around snorting cocaine off hookers in your leisure time in the first place.
And if you are snorting cocaine off of hookers it'll probably be reflected in the quality of your work. So hiding your irresponsible after hours behavior in the interview will just mean an early termination.
Just what exactly is everyone afraid their employers are going to find out about them?
"Employers find pictures of irresponsible drunken frat boy on internet. Assume an irresponsible drunken frat boy and decide not to hire him in favor of someone else. News at 11."
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not exactly bad advice, nor is what the article's author has to say. It is somewhat poorly timed though, with the economic downturn.
Do you need to be a tool all your life? It all depends. How in demand is your profession? How in demand are you in particular? What is your financial situation (ie, can you go a few months looking for a better job if all you have is offers from assholes)?
The real issue is the balance of power between employers and employees. Employers wouldn't do that if 1) potential employees made it clear they didn't care for it and 2) doing so meant that they had trouble filling their positions with qualified applicants. Only half of that equation is within the control of the potential employees, and as the economy gets worse it makes it removes even more power from them by increasing the number of people seeking a smaller number of positions. The irony is that the people with the most power--the best skills, the best financial situations--are the ones who least need the particular job.
So do people need to be tools all their lives? A lot of them do, yeah. It would be nice if that weren't the case, and they can probably do something to increase their ability to avoid it somewhat, but ultimately it's a balancing act between them, employers, and circumstances.
Great for tarnishing (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, seeing as employers are often richer than employees...
This is just a case of "The one who has the gold makes the rules", and power structures being what they are, bosses will do as they please online unless stopped by someone bigger, and quite frankly, a polite request from an employee not to be snooped is, at least from the POV of the boss:
1) A tacit admission they have something to hide
2) A challenge to their authority to check out their employee as they see fit, and be damned with ethics.
Never mind that search engines can associate you with the wrong things if you have the misfortune of having the wrong name. And never mind that some sleazeball who hates your guts could ruin your life by spamdexing your name along with some raunchy terms (like hentai).
Employers who look through web profiles are just rummaging through garbage heaps and do so at their own risk. Because while an employee may have little control over what else his online persona may be associated with (again, other people with same name), but there is also little control for the employer. However, that doesn't stop them.
So:
Surf defensively, because bosses have hooked a nice source of information, and like it or not, they ain't letting go. One may as well bow to the inevitable, submit to their place on the totem pole of power, and simply suck it up, keep their online presence clean, and cross their fingers that they won't be unlucky enough to be victimized by a search engine blunder that misassociates them.
Because, in the end, it's all about power. Are you going to resist a google search just on principle? Or are you going to be wise and realize that you ultimately have no control over what your boss is going to look for.
And if you're a boss, take your googles with a grain of salt. You're casting a pretty big fat net when you google someone, and no telling what you'll find, or even if what you dig up has any relevance. Remember that people other than your candidate have influence over what you will find.
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Protected classes (Score:3, Insightful)
how about the right of employers to not hire people who go around butt naked drinking beer ;)
seriously putting quotas on evry minority is not the solution in the long term.
In France if you want a job you should get amputated and then you will have almost no competition to get highly payed jobs.
What happens is you don't need to be as competent if you are handicapped in France, and this is not fair for other unemployed.
Re:Obligatory xkcd (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of people who are going to suffer by having people look for them online are people who don't attempt to maintain a separate internet persona and are also publicly doing things that deserve to get them in trouble. If I look up a candidate and find them on Slashdot (on the assumption it can be verified as them) and they regularly flame or troll then you can bet that would effect my hiring decision. At the same time if I found that they often gave good and tolerant answers it would also effect my decision, except this time in a positive manner.
If you post information in public then expect employers to see it. If your employer was using devious methods to get hold of something you thought was private then yes it's an issue.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Absoutely correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:3, Insightful)
Workplaces are juntas? (Score:5, Insightful)
What it's really about (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want it a secret, then don't tell anyone.
If you want if off the internets, then never let it out your private disk space.
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely, but if you put a blanket ban on companies looking into what you do they also couldn't find out any of the really stupid stuff you did last week. I'm just old enough to have dodged this issue, social networking became flavour of the month at the end of my time at university, and I fortunately had the common sense at the time to ensure I am careful about the distribution and presentation of information relating to me. I feel very sorry for people 2-10 years younger than me that are growing up in a world with so much data sharing and no way to remove things. Their is a real issue here, but the solution is to try and think about how we as society judge people unreasonably, not simply ban recruiters from doing web searches.
Also, if I am hiring a chief beancounter and there are pictures of them doing something 'really stupid' online, do you think the papers won't use those pictures if our company became news worthy? The media already loves to hunt out stupid/poor/big mouthed relatives of anyone remotely famous in order to dig dirt and create controversy.
Re:Go look for another job. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thinking that these two are mutually exclusive is silly.
As long as I do my job right, the boss has nothing to do with my wife/drinking habits/whatever. And the people who aren't even my boss yet and still want to know, they can go fuck themselves.
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire White House staff of the former Bush Administration, evidently. ;-)
Easier just to not act like a dick (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, if you're worried about what potential employers might think of you, you could just try not acting like a dick.
Or you could just use a made-up name. Do as I say or do as I do. Take your pick.
Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if you're going to post on Slashdot, Digg, or wherever, use a name that isn't who you are. Do you think my mother named me "Fudgefactor7?" Get real.
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Politely or by Cease & Desist, depending on your relationship.
Do you have ANY idea how difficult that is? Or how much it costs? Just the research alone can take hours. Sending them a C&D is fairly easy, you can do that yourself, if you can find an address to send it. Otherwise you're going to have to get their name, a trick all by itself, and use that to get an address. That might mean hiring an investigator...$50-$60/hour these days. But following up with legal action to get it enforced would cost thousands. How many unemployed people do you think can afford that? Unless you're going to do it all yourself. And, let's suppose you blunder through the morass of the legal system and manage to get a judgment, then all you have to do is figure out how to have it properly served and enforced. By the time you get done with all that, you could almost go to law school.
That's answer is right up there with the pompous douchebags who say, "If you don't like the law get it changed." Thoughtless twits.
Re:Workplaces are juntas? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? You don't have a vote into whether you have to stay there? Usually, your boss has a vote on it, and you do. You want to leave, your vote overrides his. He wants to fire you, his vote overrides yours. In other words, you have more say in one way, they have more say in another, so it's "checks and balances" time.
Employers who use irrelevant criteria in their hiring decisions will pay the price long-term, in lower-quality hires, since they'll be disqualifying some high-quality candidates for stupid reasons., The market will work it out, as they go out of business, replaced by employers with saner hiring policies.
Holy crapola, Batman, this person really IS a serf. They spend more than 4,380 hours a year at work! That's way more than the 40-hour week. Hope you're at least getting overtime.
Re:No, they don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Potential employer "We saw some bad stuff about you on the Internet...
... so we threw your resume in the trash and you don't get a rebuttal."
Fixed that for you.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone wants a house (a BIG one!) without considering what it will do to their financial independence. People make gross financial decisions based on a multitude of assumptions (assuming I keep my job, get consistent 2% pay raises for 10 years, assuming gas stays at $1.00/gallon... yes, I can afford this house) and then their plans fall apart when ANY of them fail. This isn't government-mandated stupidity: it's pathetic me-too'ism (if John can own a house I'm sure I can! John's an idiot!) and lack of foresight. Government hasn't taxed us to a subsistence level and demolished all of our financial plans - we just never made them in the first place.
Re:Employers should be required (Score:3, Insightful)
If we can't even get acknowledgment of receipt, how could we ever get a meaningful answer as to why the application was rejected?
On the other side of the fence, the first opening I advertised in Miami after the Internet started getting "hot" (1999, I think) received over 400 applicants for a single opening. The ad explicitly stated "local candidates only", which didn't stop resumes coming from San Francisco, London and Singapore.
Re:Workplaces are juntas? (Score:3, Insightful)
So a government like Franco's Spain or Mao's China could be considered democratic as long as you had the right to leave your own country or the government could throw you out?
I think you have a different idea about "democracy" than most people.
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
If you take a job working for total idiots, you're working in a place where not only won't you be able to advance you career, but where you're liable to see you job evaporate as the market collects its toll for stupid companies.
And if you modulate your life so that total idiots will hire you, you're not living. As always Randall Munroe's xkcd says it well (in fact I just printed that one out a few days ago to hang on the wall: [xkcd.com]
I've been outspoken on the internet since the early 90s, back before USENET was choked with spam. I've managed to stay employed.
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:2, Insightful)
Talk about a left-field attack! Try actually responding to their comment next time.
As an example, I'll respond directly to your earlier comment right here, right now:
It must require a very narrow view of life to think that writing code during the day and then going home and writing more code during the evenings and/or weekends can be remotely defined as having life balance. Having passion for one's interests does not require having a limited range of them, nor does it restrict oneself from having passion for a wide range of them and/or for each of them.
Re:No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
if the prospective employer finds bobsmith.com and makes the assumption that it belongs to you, the candidate he interviewed, without verifying the site owner's identity, would you really want to work for someone that clueless?
You can't judge an employer by the cluelessness of one employee in HR. So yeah, it's an issue.
I can find work somewhere else (Score:5, Insightful)
My opinion is that if a place won't hire me over petty personal stuff, I don't need to work for them that badly. I spent my childhood and so far most of my youth studying so I'd be worth hiring, you can be sure I'm going to enjoy the benefits now.
For my current job I rolled up to the interview in a beat up old track car (I've heard it's a common practice in North America to rent a shiny new car just to drive to an interview) with shaggy hair. I was shaved, dressed nicely and otherwise well-groomed though. I gave straight honest answers to everything. I sent my resume from my personal email address - my slashdot username at gmail. That alone is enough for some people to scoff at, one previous place that interviewed me commented on it (although the work environment there seemed far too uptight for my liking). A search for my username would have turned up my Slashdot posts, me shootin' the shit in various forums, right down to the lolcats and dirty humor, my hobbies, along with a few positive things like me giving tech advice etc. Searching for my real name would turn up little or nothing. I don't have a Facebook page or anything like that, I value my privacy more than that.
So I let them have that, and they hired me. It's been a pretty good fit so far. Let's say I got a job at the place that scoffed at my username - would I want to work at a place so uptight if I had a choice?
So on the topic, I don't think employers should disqualify a potentially good worker on personal grounds - while totally within their rights, it's just wrong.
"Well Mr. Smith looks perfect on paper, he's got a clean criminal record and good references, but I've found photos of him "cosplaying" here - my informal research indicates this is a common pasttime for sexual deviants - and you can see he enjoys violent videogames here, he shows interest in a hacker forum here, and he jokingly doctors this photo of a fat woman on the back of a motorcycle here. I don't think we want this type in our company."
Re:Workplaces are juntas? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course what goes along with that is "for better or for worst".
I can't tell you how many times I have heard pro-buisness people, or even managers directly talk about whats legal and perfectly right for an employer to do or require. They argue vehemently about how the company owners are king, and how employment is often "at will".
Well.. its one thing to know your rights, another to be a prick. Its legal to be a prick but... it means you bring many of your personal (or personelle) problems on yourself. Sure there is no expectation of privacy, sure you can have policies about workplace dating, can do drug testing, you can do all manner of things....
However, in the end, your employees are another customer. They give you work in exchange for your money. Just like being rude to a customer can make them a bad customer or even someone else's customer, the same goes for employees. They are customers, and if you want them to keep buying paychecks with their work, and not trying to screw you, then you had better treat them right.
Else they are just going to take their buisness elsewhere, or decreace the quality of work they are giving you....and in the end, right as you may be, its still your fault for being a prick. Sadly managers are far better at being pricks and getting away with it than employees because people don't generally stand up for themselves.
-Steve
Re:No, they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Potential employer "After reviewing your qualifications, we have decided not to pursue your application. Thank you for considering SpumCo"
Fixed that for you.
Fixed that fixed that for you for you.
Unfortunately, the reality is that potential employers almost literally never give any sort of reason, and very little useful feedback anymore, even if it would be positive or useful.
Re:Workplaces are juntas? (Score:3, Insightful)
The market will work it out, as they go out of business, replaced by employers with saner hiring policies.
Right, like the market worked out overpaid idiotic executives and badly designed operating systems. People put way to much faith in the markets ability to solve small inefficiencies like this.
Like natural selection, the market only acts on what's there and cannot make individual companies totally efficient. A company only needs to be resistant to being out-competed to survive. And this can be done in a variety of ways that have nothing to do with efficiency (intellectual property, anyone?).
Re:Workplaces are juntas? (Score:1, Insightful)
They would have, if the markets were left alone, but the government stepped in and helped, so these idiotic overpaid executives get to keep their cushy jobs, while only taking a moderate pay cut.
Re:Workplaces are juntas? (Score:5, Insightful)
tomhudson suggested that such an organization is democratic because, after all, you can leave if you want to. That reflects a pretty profound misunderstanding of what democracy is.
Re:I can find work somewhere else (Score:1, Insightful)