Job applicants asked to turn over their Facebook passwords

When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn’t see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn’t want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

Sell Facebook and Twitter stock, because if you don’t think this is going to have an impact on the market ‘need’ for those businesses, think again.

I would NEVER have a personal facebook account, nor would I have a Twitter account, nor any type of social networking account that new my name and address, or had my profile in it.

Linked-In is another one. The amount of information you can obtain about a company on Linked-In would drive most CIO’s to drink.

Eventually, these idiots will have driven their privacy policies to the point where only morons need apply.

We’ve seen this before, by the way. Anybody remember Disco? Every Friday night, for a while, dance places were packed with people in polyester. Everybody loved it, and the almost as if overnight, Disco sucked.

Eventually, people stopped going to Discos. They turned into multi-cultural sausage-fests: ethnic guys crowded around an empty dancefloor with FAR too few women in the place. Nobody told them Disco was out. They didn’t get the memo.

This is what’s going to happen to Facebook. Only those with nothing to lose will be on there playing Farmville and Mafia Wars and posting pictures of their dogs. People valuing employment security will be texting each other, or (horrors), calling people and talking to them again.

Facebook is going to implode, and its going to suck a bunch of other companies and structures in along with it when it does.

>>...lay claim to the mine that is no longer being used and re-open it...
>
>Great, wonderful Idea!! Now that you are the owner, are you going hire everybody on their word and resume?
>
>Or - are you going to:
>”... want to know A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y EVERYTHING about that candidate [that you] can POSSIBLY know.”?

I think this is the classical false dilemma; this isn’t an all or nothing situation. Besides, isn’t it said that discretion is the better part of valor? By not being discrete (and reasonable) with your demands you are turning the interview into a battle, a battle of wills, but a battle nonetheless... and as an employer you can say “I’m not playing anymore!” and take your ball and go home when someone tries to resist your demand.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.