Employers want Facebook Access
 

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world...s-1391452.html

Be prepared to give them your password or make them a friend! :p

Ridiculous.

I'm happy to be in an industry that encourages social media usage, but still allows for work/life balance.

I would just set my profile(s) to private and make them non-searchable.

I did this years ago when they let high schoolers on the site.

but now i'm reading that prospective employers want your PASSWORD to log into your facebook....
i think i might have to delete mine while hunting.

^^^I did it the night a student friended me. He greeted me the next day with, "Ms. SAI, I found you on FB!" And, I replied with, "Hi Johnny, I denied you on FB!"

Depends on the employer. It's pretty fair to judge employees by the dumb stuff they're willing to put on facebook.

I would never hand over my Facebook password to a potential employer.

I can understand an employer wanting to see my FB public profile. I can also understand an employer wanting to see what I share with my professional contacts (i.e. precious little). But if you're dumb enough to post compromising pictures and make them widely available - e.g. if every picture on your public profile shows you falling-down drunk or smoking a blunt - an employer should think twice about hiring you. So I have no problem with someone checking me out on FB, but the moment an interviewer asks for my password, I will walk out of the room.

i'm actually discussing this on facebook now and a friend made this insightful comment: "You can't legally ask about relationships, sexual orientation, age, or religious and political beliefs in an interview. However, All that is potentially placed in your profiles and you are forced to jeopardize your protected status by forfeiting that private information."

wouldn't that make sense?

If they can't find me in a search and ask me for my password, then "I deleted my profile years ago"

Exactly...same with an employer asking for an email (that's not a work email) password. F off doesn't even begin to cover my response to that.

If this sort of thing occurs more frequently, look for technology use to decrease exponentially.

If a prospective employer wanted my password I would promptly cancel the interview. I wouldn't work for a company that it would invade my personal privacy.

yup.

that's what *I* think i would do too....i wonder about the culture of a place that wants to do this.

To me, this is no different than a prospective employer tapping your phone, tailing your car or breaking into your house and reading your journal.

Yes, there are stupid people who put everything on Facebook (and out into real life, as has been since the dawn of time). However, the majority of people are discreet and know how to keep private things private - on Facebook, AND in real life. There's no reason anyone should think this is OK if they don't think having their phones tapped is OK, just because the technology makes it easy.

Judging people by what they put on facebook for others to see is one thing. Requiring that (prospective) employees provide personal passwords so that employers can log into their accounts is a whole 'nother matter, in my opinion.

What if you give your password to said employer, they log in to your account and post some horrible stuff? Are you responsible for what is on your profile?

This.

When I heard this on the news today that's exactly what I thought. If they have your password then they can act as you and say things that you would be responsible for.

Also, they could see your private messages and those private messages someone else sent to you. Not only is the potential employer violating your privacy but also the privacy of all the other individuals who have ever sent you confidential messages.

I've heard that some colleges are also doing this to students applying for scholarships. My Facebook photos and posts are plain vanilla and it's private BUT I am tagged in some photos from concerts and parties that I'd rather not have online and it does show on my profile page.

You can edit your privacy settings so tagged photos don't show up on your profile. So, if I tag you in a party photo, it'll show in my photo album, but someone visiting your page won't see it.

Tell you what. I'll give you my Facebook password, just as soon as you turn over a list of what everyone on staff here makes in salary. By name and title.

No? I thought you were all about transparency...

Love this!

Love this, too!

This would work except for state agencies who have that information on public websites already..probably most people in that agency don't know it.

You can also set it so that no one can tag you until you see the picture first, i.e. you have to approve the tag.

This is why I am not facebook friends with any co-workers. They don't need to know what I do in my personal life.

My boss did recently tell me that I needed to change my LinkedIn e-mail from my personal e-mail address to my company e-mail address since they wanted to get most of the staff on it. I refused-- LinkedIn is not just networking for my company but for me as well. I told him that I would just remove our company from my list of employers. He backed down and ended up being okay with me not having it linked to the company e-mail address.

Yep.

This.

I've never really done anything regrettable on facebook. Arguably, the stupidest thing I've done is made some friends "relatives." I've never even had a questionable photo (lies. When I was 13 and incredibly naive, the movie-musical Hairspray was out and it was a huge hit. I was obsessed with Penny Pingleton, and I took a whole bunch of photos with me pretending to be Penny--her trademark is a lollipop. I had NO CLUE what it meant at that time).

But my password? Umm, no thanks. The only person allowed to access my facebook page is me.

Hubby made an interesting comment.

I forget the exact name Company #1 but they were suing Sony about lying and stealling; they were able to get employee's webpostings in newsgroups.

Link didn't work but I was going to post this from the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BUAG1NNHQ2.DTL

Same article - different paper.

Thanks:)

Last fall, I was a candidate for a law enforcement job. During the orientation meeting, the background investigator outright told us that, if we make it to the background interviews, do not be surprised if there's a laptop on the table - they're going to ask us to log into our Facebook account. He said either that or we would be contacted and asked to temporarily set our profiles to public for the investigator to review. He said they would be looking for any evidence of inappropriate behavior (smoking pot, etc) and to see what kind of people we have on our friends list. They told us, "If there's something you don't want us to see, delete it now. You've been given fair warning."

.....Kelly :)

Well law enforcement or clergy I think could be held to a bit different standard because your personal life is so critical to your public one. But having you log in for them to see is NOT asking you for your password.

And regarding the LinkedIn thing, it wouldn't surprise me that the boss is just lazy and trying to piggyback on your work. The fact that your other co-workers haven't yet figured out that LinkedIn should almost be mandatory is a different thing. I can't say too much. Until my husband's recent job search began, I really didn't get it about LinkedIn either.

I'd treat an employer who asks for my Facebook password the same way as I'd treat a SO who asks for one: I'd tell them it's none of their business. If it's in a controlled situation, considering that I have nothing to hide, I'll log in in front of them, but log out immediately afterwards.

Anyone who insists too hard effectively gets a middle finger from me.

Yes, I could see this in a security clearance type of situation also. I had a card on my door recently from someone doing a security clearance background check on a neighbor that I don't even know. The card had the neighbor's name, said he had applied for a job with the FBI or something (don't remember, didn't pay that much attention) and if I knew him I should call the number on the business card.

See, to me, this can foster laziness. "Oh well, he didn't have anything on his Facebook so he must be OK." What they don't know is he drops acid on a nightly basis but is smart enough to not have a camera anywhere nearby.

And as far as the "what kind of people we have on our friends list" - that just sounds like code for racism/religious intolerance etc.

No way would I ever give this information to a potential employer...or anyone else for that matter. My password is a secret. Plus, if my profile is not public to begin with, and I have tight privacy controls, my employer has no need to be concerned about me harming the company's public reputation. I can't imagine my employer ever asking me for this information (or asking me to let them browse my profile after I logged in for them), and I'm pretty high up at a PR firm! I feel so strongly about this that if my employer suddenly issued a policy tomorrow stating that everyone must grant them access to our profile - or "friend" them - I would probably resign. I am Facebook friends with some of my coworkers, but not anyone in HR or the executives, and I never friend any of my clients.

I am mostly concerned about the political or religious identifiers that I have on Facebook. In an interview I would never discuss my feelings on Rick Santorum, but they are on Facebook. The same is true with the number of children I have or their ages. This allows employers to discriminate on things that they never would be able to normally.
On the other hand, many employers have been burned when racy photos of their employees were made public. I can see how they would want to know beforehand, but it might just be better to make a company policy about social networking for employees.

^^
From yahoo news
http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-warns...163806953.html

Facebook standing up for privacy? Wow.