If it were 1947 this would not be happening. I do not picture a WWII vet, sitting at an interview acquiescing to Nazi-like interrogative requests from employers. They had too much self-respect. But today's modern day American male is a different breed. Meek, humble, cowardly and effeminate, sadly I see most people so desperate for a job they would comply.
However, I do predict employers, particularly the HR nazi's that come up with these violating ideas, will suffer a backlash. There will come a time where not only will it be impossible to meet these impossibly high standards, but most people will just give up and have no problems going on the government dole. It's kind of like the captain of the cheerleading team threatening time and time again she won't go out with you, and you realize soon, she'll never go out with you. She never had any intention. And once people in the labor force start to have a similar epiphany (ie-you were never going to get the job in the first place, it's already reserved for her BFF) the snide, little 24 HR ditz asking people for their Facebook password, might get a well-deserved lecture about shoving applications where the sun doesn't shine instead of compliance.
Of course I have grand dreams of millions of job interviewees telling HR to shove it where the sun doesn't shine so that employers might start changing their tune. But, alas, that is truly wishful thinking on my part.
Facebook may sue companies asking for passwords:
ReplyDeletehttp://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/03/facebook-says-it-may-sue-employers-who-demand-job-applicants-passwords.ars
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteModern feudalism: we need Duke Facebook to protect us from Lord HR Dept. We're all just serfs, no inherent value as human beings, beyond what our Corporate Masters grant us.
Understand there's HR, then there's HR. The folks you have an issue with are "Recruiting." There's also folks who manage your benefits and payroll, who fight with the insurance company to get your penis enlargement covered, and those who help managers shitcan bad employees. Good HR! They can be quite helpful. My wife works HR and has given me the lowdown. She hates recruiting and recruiters. She's done it and if you are a manager and looking for anything other than somebody with a totally fungible skillset (e.g. "legal transcription... 90 WPM" or "mailroom clerk") and you rely on an HR recruiter to get a skilled unique person, then you're a damn fool, in her opinion. Recruiting is considered one of the worst jobs in HR, in large part b/c it's very hard to do well. According to my wife, the people who like it and find it easy and fun aren't doing it right and produce shitty results for the managers because they (the recruiters) are dumb; and the people who do recruiting well and find the employees the managers are looking for are smart, and quickly move out of recruiting into HR jobs that are more lucrative and less crappy, where brains are rewarded, like 401(k) management.
ReplyDeleteWhen i applied for jobs two decades ago, they asked for referrals from college professors and administrators. They didn't ask to speak to my friends, ex-girlfriends or dorm RAs.
ReplyDeleteWhy does American business now think they have the right to assess our personal lives, yet they didn't back then?
And don't even get me started on "HR professionals." I've commented on blogs before about this. I worked for years for a naturally "diverse" company, where everyone seemed to share a common goal. We were bought out by a bigger company and in came the HR idiots with their lectures, films and (false) stats. All of a sudden, people started to avoid and fear each other. Productivity plummeted; attrition soared. HR wrecked the workers' unique chemistry by making them paranoid wrecks.
- Days of Broken Arrows
in "Worthless" i do actually discern between "HR Ditzes" and "benefits and compensation." My dad was a B&C guy, plus I am fully aware of the impotance of lowering insurance costs as well as doing labor market studies to assess salaries.
ReplyDelete"as the job market steadily improves"
ReplyDeleteNo water carrying going on here. Nothing to see. Move along.
I'd like to see a security company ask people for their facebook passwords in interviews, and if the applicant provides it, fail them out. I doubt that would actually happen, though.
ReplyDeleteThat is a disgusting invasion of privacy.
ReplyDeleteThen again, check out all the other rules and regulations in modern America. Banks act as government agents, that report on their customers. All new cars have a black box recording device. The data can be used against you, in an accident investigation. The government tells people, what kind of light bulb to use and regulates household toilet water flows. The EPA is the 21st century version of the Gestapo. Airport security, well we all know that story.
But hey, at least you do not need ID to cast a vote.
The land of the free is perhaps now, just a nostalgic memory.
"Sure, you can have my Facebook password, if I can have yours."
ReplyDeleteWhat about those Luddites who do not have a Facebook account?
"We need more visa workers. None of the local workers are acceptable."
ReplyDelete"Why not?"
"They wouldn't enter their FaceBook passwords."
I wonder about people who don't use any social media at all?
"Disqualified immediately."
Dirty Harry got it right:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdyN8NH87s
There's no way I would provide my password, but I would log in to show them my wall.
ReplyDeleteMostly that's because my Facebook wall is littered with rants about economics, along with what humor and wit I can manage. Interviews are as much a process of deciding if you want to work for the company as they are about the company deciding if they want to hire you, and their reaction to my opinions and sense of humor would tell me an awful lot about whether I would want to work for someone.
Demanding a password, though? Yeah, screw that noise. Nobody gets any of my passwords, ever.
Reason #10,203 to not have a Facebook account.
ReplyDeleteIn any event, the only acceptable answer is: No.
I had one employer ask me to sign a 5 page non-disclosure agreement before an interview. It also contained a "non-compete" clause. They were demanding me to agree to a non-compete, without even telling me any details of their business?
ReplyDeleteI refused. Unfortunately, most people don't. The employer probably thinks "FSK was a jerk for refusing to sign."
That might be a good one for our intrepid Captain to investigate FSK.
ReplyDeleteI had a friend go through that and he won it in court. He had signed a non-competition contract and when they canned him 11 years later he promptly broke it.
It ended up in court and the ruling was that he had to support himself - and unless the company were willing to do it - their non-comptetion terms and conditions of employment were all null and void.
The rules for non-competes vary by state.
ReplyDeleteYou might prevail in court. You probably won't recover legal expenses. You probably won't recover from the time and stress of a trial.
If a prospective employer is sue-happy, it's better to stay away from them. When they give a lengthy restrictive contract, it's better to stay away.
I've saw a non-compete with a financial consulting company that covered "all current or prospective customers". That meant I couldn't take *ANY* financial programmer jobs in NYC!
The bottom line is that it may not be enforceable, but you can lose money and stress defending yourself. It's better to avoid sue-happy people.
Meh. I gave up worrying about non-compete clauses years ago. I've signed more than my share of contracts to the effect of "whether or not the company offers you a job, the company owns every thought that passes through your mind, beginning six months before you signed this contract and continuing until your natural death, and retains the right, upon your departure, to legally prohibit you from ever practicing your profession again in any English-speaking country". Not only are such clauses almost certainly unenforceable, but I've never yet worked for a company that used one which didn't cease operations within about a week of my departure.
ReplyDeleteFacebook passwords? Yeah, right. Like I'd give them _any_ of my passwords, to _anything_. Like there's anything they'd learn from my facebook account other than my participation in a couple of social groups that strongly imply my membership in three legally-protected classes that aren't otherwise obvious on casual examination of either my resume or my face.
Employers making that sort of demand had really better hope that our host is right and civilization collapses before the labor market has a chance to recover again. I for one suspect that it won't.