Mat Honan flunked his social media background check. He writes about it on Gizmodo, I Flunked My Social Media Background Check. Will You? I thought it an entertaining piece. Honan writes with humor and detail and as he does so one is struck that this obviously intelligent guy might have trouble finding work based on his social media employment screening check.
As I just posted an article on RecruitingBlogs,.com , entitled, “ FTC Questions FCRA Compliance with Social Media Background Checks,” I thought this Honan’s posting timely about the misgivings I had about social media background checks. Honan reports that his social media check issues a past/fail to the employer. Interesting. Based on what? Drugs, drink, sex, undesirable behavior. I guess.
As I have written, Honan claims there are no clear rules regarding the positives, the negatives, the different criterion in a social media background check. Pass. Fail. Tick. Tock. But Honan does not find the social media background checks to be without purpose. He writes…”But ultimately the bottom line, and my takeaway, is that these kind of services actually make a lot of sense. Employers would have to be stupid not to Google job candidates. Yet it’s better for both the employer and the candidate to have a disinterested third-party do full-scrape background checks.
We now routinely bandy about the kind of information online that employers are legally prohibited from asking. Your average Facebook profile can reveal an entire litany of details like your race, sexual orientation, national origin, or religious affiliation that are off-limits in the hiring process.”
Hona’ns article is well worth reading. When I read it and went over some of the particulars, I think of my son and his friends, avant-garde arty types who may dress a bit outlandishly and may not leave the life of those willing to settle within the constraints of a picket fence but who still manage to work at their arts and crafts some sixteen to twenty hours a day sometimes to meet deadlines and to assure themselves their work is in top form. Maybe not every employer’s cup of tea, but few can challenge their general work ethic and the hours they are willing to labor at their tasks.
Anyway…
