Reader-submitted link: I thought you would appreciate this one.
Ah, yes.
I’m imagining the folks at the City of Bozeman scratching their heads. Why WOULDN’T job applicants be willing to comply with this simple request?
Dear City of Bozeman and anyone else who is stupid enough to ask strangers for their passwords,
If something is posted on a public website, you can look at it. For example, you can come and look at my blog any time you want. You can check out the comments section and see what other people have posted. It’s all public; anyone can see what’s posted here. The same goes for many other websites and social-networking pages: sites like Flickr, YouTube and millions of message boards. Go nuts. I’m not telling you where I hang out, but if you happen to find me, good on ya.
If something’s posted on a walled-garden site like Facebook or an invite-only social-networking site, it’s much less public. You’ll need a password to get in, and you might need your precious job applicant to give you access to the things that are posted there. This is like asking for the password to his personal e-mail account. Or demanding to be invited to his weekly poker game. Or tapping his home phone. Or going through the photo albums at his mom’s house.
In other words, you can just shag off.
In other words, you can just shag off.
Um, yes. What Megan said.
Yikes.
I’m curious as to what they really intend to get out of this. I’d venture to guess that a person’s Facebook profile has little to no impact on their qualifications for any given position… it would seem to be totally irrelevant information.
What ever happened to checking an applicant’s references and contacting previous employers?
I just looked at my Facebook page, and there are no references to my qualifications for any job except maybe “soccer mom”. However, any of my Facebook friends can see personal information that employers are not allowed to consider when hiring. For example, you can see my marital status, birthday, and religion (“I keep my visions to myself”).
“shag off”? Really? Are we aiming for the international crowd now?
The excerpt from the application quoted in the article doesn’t actually ask for the passwords, it just wants to know where the applicant “hangs out”, as you put it. Which suggests an employer with a stunning lack of creativity and a lazy streak – don’t think I’m interested in working there, thanks.
Montana isn’t always a beacon of liberty…
Exactly Megan, which leads me to believe that the only conceivable reason for requesting this information is to gain access to data that they’re not legally allowed to consider. And then, if they use that data, they’re probably going to see lawsuits very quickly, and if they don’t use that data, there isn’t any point in requesting it in the first place.
I can’t see any way that they could benefit from this. Maybe I’m not thinking it through as well as they did, or maybe it was just extraordinarily ill-conceived to begin with.
After being snubbed by so many Bozeman locals who refuse to be their facebook friend, this seems to be an ideal solution. I like it . . . it’s like stalking, but you actually get to be inside their house.