If a company asked you for your Facebook password because it was a requirement during their hiring process, would you give it to them? As desperate as I am to find work right now, I don't think that I could do it. That's an invasion of privacy and no better than the company asking for the password to your email accounts.
When a New York statistician named Justin Bassett recently interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So, he was a little taken back when the interviewer asked him for his Facebook username and password. That's right! Bassett had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook, which was set to a private profile, she turned to him and asked him to hand over his login info. He refused and withdrew his application, saying that he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. Who would? This is not a Communist Country....yet! There's no reason for a company to ask for private information like this, but as the job market, which is said to be steadily improving, other job candidates are confronting the same questions from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.
Why are these companies taking advantage of the unemployed like this? They are treating the unemployed like that have them by the balls, by asking questions like this. So, basically, if I was to not give my username and password to a company, I couldn't work there? How is that fair at all? Its equivalent to a prospective employer asking you for your house keys because they'd like to take a look around your house to see how you live. Its privacy violation, and the fact that this is happening to people, like me, who are desperately seeking work, makes me sick to my stomach!
Questions have been raised about the legality of this practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks. It's no secret that since the rise of social media, it's become common for managers to review publically available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, and other sites to learn more about job candidates, but many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people or certain networks. Here's a good idea! In the age of Smartphones, instead of the interviewer asking for login information, what if they just asked to be temporarily 'friended' so that they can see their profiles. This way it can be done right there on your phone, and you can delete them once they're done snooping around.
Companies that don't ask for passwords have taken other steps, such as asking for applicants to friend human resource managers or to log in to a company computer during an interview. Once employed, some workers have been required to sign non-disparagement agreements that ban them from talking negatively about an employer on social media. Well, that would be dumb to talk negatively about your job on a public forum, wouldn't it? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for companies doing background checks on prospective employees because technically, you want to make sure you're hiring a stand-up person, but to ask for login information, I feel that is just uncalled for and to not hire someone because they refused to give you that information is just ludicrous! What do you think?
