HRBabe’s Weblog

I am a MBA candidate and I recently took a required, but very interesting, business law class. One of my projects was to pick a topic and explore the ethical and legal implications of this topic. I chose to explore Recruiting and the use of Social Media Networking Sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, and of course, LinkedIn.

The biggest question I had to ask was: Is your life outside of work really outside of work?
The answer is: Not anymore.

According to a study done by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com, one in five employers utilizes social media networking sites to help make employment decisions. You can read the article here.

I am fine with the use of LinkedIn, as it is a professional site. It is highly business and alumni focused. It also has limitations and does not give room for much personal information aside from anything work related. It is the ultimate “online resume,” if you will. Further, not everyone can randomly add him or herself to your network. And while it allows the use of 1 personal photo, it limits the size making it difficult to see much detail and you can control who sees it. For example, if you are not in my network, you cannot see my photo.

It is shocking that Recruiters, knowing the level of confidential data they have access to, would use MySpace or Facebook to recruit candidates. Know that the ISO 27001 business certification addresses Data Privacy. Any informed business would not allow access to these sites via the company portal.  However, if Recruiters do use the company portal to search these sites, know that A) they are overly saturated with media and would therefore bog down any business bandwidth and put the business at risk for hacking and B) open the candidate up to several forms of discrimination protected under Federal Law. Let’s take Facebook for example. What types of information (just about yourself) do you post? Do you post your marital status, political views, religious views?  Do you post pictures (in good or poor taste) of yourself?  All of these can be used as basis for discrimination. Additionally, if you do post this type of information publicly about yourself, who is to say you will not be that open about client data?  

Another risk for the business – Productivity. Are recruiters really recruiting when they are surfing these sites? Creative Capital showed some older metrics regarding how long people actually spend on these sites. In December of 2007, MySpace users spent THREE hours on the site per visit. That’s nearly half the workday! LinkedIn weighed in at a puny 7 minutes, however, I would like to see updated numbers on this.

I will leave you with this very personal story of mine. A few months after I got married, my husband went in for a job interview with a new firm. One of the first things the two bone-headed managers kicked the interview off with was to inform him they “Googled” him and found our wedding announcement in the newspaper. Technically, they were not supposed to know he was married; but by the same token, he and I also voluntarily placed the announcement in the very public newspaper. However, *I* was not applying for the job; he was.  And the context in which it was found (to find “dirt”) really left me with a violated feeling.  Also, it is very apparent in the picture that I am not fully Anglo. Maybe this company doesn’t like men who marry half Asian women and has a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel for a father. And because we are newlyweds and possibly want to start a family, they decided they didn’t like him because he’ll most likely be taking some time off.  Funny, he didn’t get hired.

Not necessarily true, but a definite possibility.

Be careful what you post online. You can bet someone from work is watching. And if it’s not work, it’s someone looking to get information on you. Do what you think is in your best interest to protect yourself and your online persona.