Dangers Of Using Social Networks On The Job Hunt In Australia
July 22, 2009
NEWS.com.au (Australia) reports about the Dangers of using social networks on the job hunt.
Employers using social networks to gather information on job candidates could be breaking the law.
Social networks have become hot recruitment tools but Harmers Workplace Lawyers warn that using such sources to gather personal information to screen would-be employees carries a number of legal risks.
Harmers senior associate Bronwyn Maynard says many employers and recruiters are not aware of their obligations under the existing Privacy Act let alone the “General Protections” section of the Fair Work Act that came into force on July 1, 2009.
Under the Privacy Act employers and recruiters must:
- Inform a candidate that they have collected personal information about them.
- Explain the purpose of gathering the information.
- Tell the candidate who else will see the information.
Luckily for recruiters and hiring managers, most candidates don’t realise that under privacy legislation they are entitled to see notes made about them during the recruitment screening process.
“The Privacy Act also dictates that companies must only collect personal information that is necessary for their business,” explains Ms Maynard.
Candidates can apply directly to employers and recruitment consultants to see the notes made and information gathered about them during a recruitment campaign. A candidate can request that inaccurate information be corrected. If the candidate considers the information irrelevant he or she can then make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.
Ms Maynard said while there is no set timeframe, to expect a reply within 30 days would be a reasonable.
Read more about the Dangers of using social networks on the job hunt.
Related Posts From FYI Screening:
Photo Credit: Hexadecimal Time
What Your Boss Knows Could Hurt You
July 14, 2009
Here’s some good tips on privacy from PC World.
Written by Christopher Null
How to Avoid Facebook and Twitter Disasters
Who knew your boss could see so much of your Facebook page–including the pics from your wild weekend? Oversharing can lead to underemployment. Take some practical steps to control what others see about you.
Read the article here.
After reading that you may want to read “Does Google Know Too Much About You?” by Ian Paul.
Photo credit: izik
The Pitfalls Of Using Social Networking To Screen Potential Employees
July 13, 2009
Here’s an excellent article on using social networks for employee screening.
Source: IT Business Edge
Lora Bentley spoke with Jacqueline Klosek, senior counsel and privacy law practitioner at Goodwin Procter, about the pitfalls employers want to avoid when using social networking and other Web sites to screen potential employees.
Bentley: I’ve read about the public outcry that resulted from the City of Bozeman, Montana’s decision to ask job applicants for their social networking site user names and passwords. Obviously, there are enough problems associated with that practice that the city discontinued it. Can you explain?
Klosek: It’s just, in my mind, fraught with legal dangers. For example, what you post on your own Web site, the writings and photos and such, you’re really using someone else’s service. And for the most part, if you provide your password to the sites in which you participate, you could be violating their terms of use, which could leave you as the user subject to potential claims, including termination of your account or worse.
Then, as an employer, say you ask someone for their user name and password and then give it to another employee to do the screening, you don’t know exactly what they’re going to do with that information. With the user name and password, they’re basically impersonating the person whose account it is. They can send e-mails that purport to be on that person’s behalf, they can review e-mails that were sent from other people… It could be mundane personal communications, but there could also be trade secrets being exchanged, or a host of other things behind these protected e-mails. It’s just a minefield of dangers, in my view.
Bentley: What if you are using the Internet to screen prospective employees without their user names and passwords? Aren’t there still risks in doing that?
Read the rest of the article here.
Related Posts From FYI Screening:
Photo Credit: AdamSelwood
Hiring Managers Are Checking You Out
June 10, 2009
According to a Jump Start Social Media survey that polled 100 hiring managers at small, mid-sized and large companies:
Three-quarters of hiring managers check LinkedIn to research the credentials of job candidates. Of the hiring managers surveyed, 75% use LinkedIn, 48% use Facebook, and 26% use Twitter to research candidates before making a job offer.
“Social media is not only a great networking tool, it’s also a way for employers to perform reference checks on job candidates,” said Veronica Fielding, president of Digital Brand Expressions and its social media service for consumers, Jump Start Social Media. “Because LinkedIn is the most professionally oriented of the three, it tends to attract hiring managers who are doing due diligence.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Related Posts From FYI Screening:
The One Thing Not To Post On Twitter
June 8, 2009
Are Colleges Spying On High School Students?
June 6, 2009
From The (Toledo) Blade
There has been a growing trend in recent years for employers to check out MySpace, Facebook, and, more recently, Twitter pages on the Internet to learn more about people applying for jobs. There even have been cases in which college students were denied degrees or certifications because of objectionable things posted on their social networking sites.
Now, high school students have cause to beware as well because a significant number of colleges are using these sites, as well as search engines, to research and evaluate applicants, even denying admissions or scholarships based on what they find.
According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, 26 percent of college admission officers surveyed said they used Internet search engines and 21 percent said they used social networking sites to research prospective students. The survey of hundreds of colleges was conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
In other words, it’s not just predators who might be monitoring the tweets and posts of teenagers. It also could be the people who decide where those teens go to college, which ought to make young people pause before they hit the send button to share with friends their latest exploits.
Related Posts From FYI Screening:
Photo Credit: lancefisher
5 Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy
June 3, 2009
Frederic Abramson over at the New York Business Law Blog gives you 5 Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy.
Read them here.
I also recommend that you follow Frederic Abramson on Twitter here. He is a New York Business Law Attorney that offers lots of great advice.
Employee Screening Articles For May 2009
June 1, 2009
In case you missed any of our employee screening articles for May, here’s a quick recap of our most popular:
- The Top 10 Tweets To Get You Fired
- The Other Background Check: What Does Google Have To Say About You?
- Twitter and Employment Law Issues
Smart, Compliant Hiring Decisions Made Easy
FYI Screening, Inc. offers a complete portfolio of employee screening services that will help you work smarter while providing the industry’s fastest turnaround and the highest quality results.
This will allow your company to focus on what really matters: hiring and retaining the best employees possible.
-
Sign-Up for a demo to see our new, faster, smarter employee screening technology.
Photo Credit: arturodonate
Twitter and Employment Law Issues
May 28, 2009
There’s an interesting article from the Social Media Law Student blog titled “The First Law School Seminar Paper on Twitter: Twitter and Employment Law Issues.”
It’s actually a seminar paper authored by Vincent Pascual on potential Employment Law issues that employers and employees may face with regards to what users post online.
Some Of The Areas Covered:
- Pitfalls as Related to Employment Law
- Use of tweets in hiring/firing
- Fake Profiles: The Potential for Identity Theft and/or Defamation
- What should employees do at this point?
Conclusion:
“Without much case law to guide people one way or another, employees and job applicants should be highly vigilant about what they post and think twice before they post something. Tweeting should be treated as publishing a story to the front page of a newspaper or website for everyone to see.”
Related posts from FYI Screening:
The Top 10 Tweets To Get You Fired
Employee Screening Through Social Networks
The Dangers of Using Social Networks for Employee Screening
Related Posts From Around The Web
Beware: Your ‘tweet’ on Twitter could be trouble
Think of Twitter as ‘Megatexting,’ But Proceed With Caution
Twitter in and about the workplace can bring trouble
Photo Credit: MattJhsn
The Other Background Check: What Does Google Have To Say About You?
May 14, 2009
Employers have long known the value of background checks in reducing liability and protecting their investment in recruiting and training employees. But now employers augment this process with their own internet search.
Typically employers are looking for red flags, information that calls into question a candidate’s ethics, responsibility, or professionalism. But often employers also look for experience not listed on your resume and to verify your credentials. Managing your online presence requires proactive tracking of existing mentions and creation of new ones that will make you a stronger candidate to a potential employer.
- Do your own search. Use Google, Yahoo!, and MSN and search for various iterations of your name: “James Smith,” “Jim Smith,” “James Smith Arizona,” “Jim Smith Tucson,” “Jim Smith ABC Company,” etc.
- Evaluate. Visit each link with a mention of you and determine whether the content is positive, neutral or negative in relation to your job search. Bookmark both positive and negative mentions.
- Subtract. For all negative mentions, if it’s something you posted, delete it. If it’s thanks to a friend, contact them and ask them to remove it. Anything else, use your best judgment as to whether you might get it to disappear with a polite letter to the website owner, or whether that might make it worse. It takes only seconds to post something online, but can take months to remove it. Even once something no longer exists on the page, it can live on in cached pages, links, and other references.
- Add. Start a professional blog, participate in forums and online communities related to your field, volunteer for organizations where you may get some visibility, and create profiles for yourself on LinkedIn, Fast Company, and other online networking sites. All of these have the potential to rank high on search engines, pushing any potential blemishes in your record off of the first page of search results, and showing potential employers even more that you have to offer their organization as a new employee.
- Utilize. Once you have a good library of positive references online, think of ways that they could enhance your job search. Submit web links with your references when requested, or refer an interviewer to a link as a follow up to a question you were asked.
Take your online image into your own hands, and you can maximize your advantage and minimize any potential damage.
Photo credit: jonas_therkildsen
This is a guest post by Kristi Daeda. Kristi is a Success Coach for organizations and individuals, and counsels professionals at all levels on effectiveness and maximizing talent. She writes about career development, leadership, management, talent and job search at kristidaeda.com.
