Is it OK for HR departments to "stalk" employees on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Dave Wagner, Jul 20, 2009.

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  1. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    Is it OK for the HR department to "stalk" employees on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter to make personnel decisions? (My students have been discussing this question in a business information systems course.)
     
  2. bmills072200

    bmills072200 New Member

    I would say yes... anything that someone chooses to make public knowledge should be acceptable in a personnel decision.

    Now, if the company is trying to access information that is not public in a less than honorable way, then I would agree that this would cross the line.
     
  3. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    My grandaughter modifies her name when communicating via these methods to maintain her privacy.
     
  4. mattbrent

    mattbrent Well-Known Member

    I think if someone is stupid enough to put up pictures of themselves passed out drunk and such, then sure, it should be used against them.

    I can't believe how many of my high school students post pictures of them drinking. Of course, I do live in a community where the cops usually go to the same parties as the kids, so I'm not surprised.

    The good thing about Facebook, however, is that everything is private except to your "friends".

    -Matt
     
  5. perrymk

    perrymk Member

    I've also heard that some are required to add as friends the HR person (or manager) or the hiring process ended there.

    Really, if a potential employer asked you to friend them and you needed a job, would you say no? Use the old teenager trick. Keep two profiles. One for your parents to know about and one for your friends. So when asked, one has a profile to friend HR (or your parents). Or be really smart and not put incriminating information online.
     
  6. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Your choice of the word stalking is inappropriate, if you're simply referring to a human resource person who looks at information that has been freely posted on the internet.
     
  7. Woho

    Woho New Member

    I'm actually thinking about putting up a page seo optimized to my name just as a counter meashure / honey trap to know at least the IP and to geo locate who is googling me and collect the other traces they may leave. And of cause using fake or misspelled data on social network site sign ups should be standart.
     
  8. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    I'm not sure how that will prevent HR stalkers, but it might be interesting...
     
  9. cutedeedle

    cutedeedle I speak Geek. Will translate on request.

    This came up a few weeks ago (note the web sites' passwords you must turn over to the jack-booted thugs for any job application):
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=922
    If you can't read it because you're not a member, here's a snip (emphasis added):

    A town once called the “All-America City,” Bozeman, Montana, has taken an interesting tack when it comes to background checks on job candidates. According to cbsnews.com:
    The Rocky Mountain city instructs all job applicants to divulge their usernames and passwords for “any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.” Bozeman city officials say that this is just a component of a thorough background check.

    Kevin Bankston, an attorney, said, “Essentially they’re conditioning your application for employment on your waiving your First Amendment rights … and risking the security of your information by requiring you to share your password with them… Where does it stop? How about a photocopy of your diary?”

    How 'bout that!!??
     
  10. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    Stalk? I don't know. Check before hire? Of course. An HR employee who doesn't google someone isn't doing due diligence. Facebook pages come up on google.
    A different question is if it's ethical/professional to monitor a current employee (or a list of them) seems like an abuse of company time and $, but it would be easy to do.
    Well, I still side with "yes" because how an employee fits into corporate culture is absolutely a reason to promote/not promote. An employee's asset and liability to a company is never strictly limited to the defined tasks of a job. (teachers as strippers, golfing with the boss at his country club, etc)

    I only know about facebook, but you have the security option of setting your profile settings. You can make the content/photos only visible to friends if you choose- that isn't the default however! The default setting makes your pics/profile open to anyone in network. It might be a good time to check your FB settings LOL :)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 21, 2009
  11. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Same issues with college admissions. Admissions departments routinely research applicants' online presences. This came up with regard to my grandson, who is a year away from applying to college. He has been posting, on Facebook, some rather intemperate remarks about the teacher who recently gave him the first "B" of his life. His parents found a number of articles, and two books on college applications, that suggest very strongly that other things being equal, an applicant seen as ungrateful or overly critical in this way might be in trouble.
     
  12. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    "Stalk" is the term that is used to describe the process of surfing through a person's profile and web pages to uncover information to harass or harm them.
     
  13. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    >>

    got it- I'm not so techno :)
     
  14. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Just read a review in our morning paper of a new book, "The Peep Diaries," by Hal Niedzviecki, that suggests many people have a need to give up their privacy--the digital equivalent people who publicly expose themselves. The author interviews people who have suffered at school or work because of "addictive oversharing" on social networks, and finds that most of them would do it again.
     
  15. cutedeedle

    cutedeedle I speak Geek. Will translate on request.

    So true ..... kids these days seem unaware (or unconcerned) that colleges and employers regularly check public/social sites as well as Google permutations of their name. My stepson is about to apply for a medical residency and he has some obnoxious photos on FB. I have urged him leave the site but then again, he's "tagged" in all his friends' photos too. On the other hand, my daughter is in the process of applying to med schools and has never been on FB or MS, thank goodness. She actually has a life.

    I think these social sites are way too public for my taste. I'm on LinkedIn but it's a professional/networking thing and so far there has been no misuse there.
     
  16. cutedeedle

    cutedeedle I speak Geek. Will translate on request.

    Narcissism, eh? So if one reads "The Peep Diaries" does that make one a "peeper" also?
    :eek:
     
  17. sentinel

    sentinel New Member

    Oh, I am quite certain employers would be delirious if all their wanna-be employees and current employees were mere mindless automaton. A Google search of my name returns a plethora of entries, none of which seems to refer to my FB account. Of course with over 11 pages of search results are you telling me someone would spend time searching every matching entry trying to ferret out information about me assuming they can find my account? Holy Hades! We are not talking about working for CSIS, MI-6, KGB, or CIA.
     
  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Point of order

    So people who have profiles on social networking sites have no life, as opposed to people who post on online forums, who... what exactly?

    -=Steve=-
     
  19. cutedeedle

    cutedeedle I speak Geek. Will translate on request.

    No, networking sites can be useful in connecting to long lost or distant friends and loved ones. It's the constant narcissistic posting of every thought, mundane event, pictures of people getting drunk and partying (or worse), "tests" you've taken and posted to determine your love quotient, your attractiveness, your horoscope future, various groups you belong to, the list is endless, not to mention mind numbing. I have time to post here because I don't work and live in a very rural area, so heaps of hours to spend, mostly to avoid studying.
    ;)

    Let's not forget there's real and helpful information here too.
     
  20. cutedeedle

    cutedeedle I speak Geek. Will translate on request.

    No, but extensive background checks aren't limited to high security clearance government positions. Those checks happen even at the local government level when working in any kind of law enforcement position, in any capacity, even clerical.

    I think you're misinformed if you really believe this is not the newest trend in HR screening. I've been in I.T. tech and management at a high level, still subscribe to all of the geeky newsletters and e-blasts. Trust me, this is becoming a routine way of screening employees/students and performing due diligence. See my post about Bozeman, MT as an example of one city that requires job applicants to turn over all their accounts and passwords to the city's H.R. They've gone too far -- but searching on social sites and in Google is very commonplace.

    As an aside, there are several social web sites that can be hacked and login names and passwords gathered because their security is deficient. It's a very ugly world out there and colleges and employers definitely gather information about their applicants. Just because folks aren't aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't occur.

    Perhaps it's not legal or maybe it hasn't been challenged, but it's done.
     

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