MYspace, not YourSpace
“Warning: Social Networking Can Be Hazardous to Your Job Search,” according to CareerBuilder.com Editor Katie Lorenz as she graced my SMU e-mail inbox this past weekend. It was sent in hopes of shedding light on how future employers can use information on public domains to make hiring decisions.
“Executive search firm, ExecuNet, found that 77 percent of recruiters run searches of candidates on the Web to screen applicants: 35 percent of these same recruiters say they’ve eliminated a candidate based on the information they uncovered.” If this statement was meant to scare me, it accomplished just that, because it terrifies me to imagine the ambiguity of the results that may arise from these improper screenings.
The example the article uses is that of a company deciding between two candidates, one of which, when screened, yielded a MySpace account with the potential hire pictured in a bikini and hinting promiscuity, which was enough for the recruiter to conclude that the candidate was “not quite what we were looking for.” In this particular case, as in perhaps many others, the profile viewed by the recruiter was irrelevant to the position and the candidate obviously possessed the skills necessary to perform the job required but was discriminated against based on biased observations.
By attacking the person and not their qualifications, employers run the risk of implementing unfair hiring techniques.
Resorting to online screening of personal pages, or blogs is inherently intrusive and possibly detrimental to our personal privacy. These techniques further empower companies to dominate and control our private lives in order to fit a mold of proper conduct based on personal opinions, biases and discriminatory practices under the veil of “screening of job candidates.”
Legal practices of screening such as background checks, drug screenings and interviews, are the type of tools that are regulated in such a way as to hire the correct applicants and maintain the regulations that are standard of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions guidelines.
According to ExecuNet CEO David Opton, “managing your online image is something everyone should address.” While I realize it is beneficial to practice a level of restraint in matters that involve legality and offensive material, I do worry that this initiative to encourage self-censorship is in fact a push to regard public domain as a place in which one should fear practicing their freedom of expression.
“It is still an undisciplined, uncontrolled environment,” remarked Frank Wyckoff, owner of Snelling Personnel Services in Eatontown, N.J., in a recent article published in Home News Tribune Online, in which he also said he prefers to pay for background checks.
I worry about the ethical implications of employers who resort to screening potential candidates Face the Jury profiles instead of their Curriculm Vitae. The risk of hasty generalizations and partiality associated with the collection of information that is irrelevant to the position being sought is extremely high and should be reason enough for respectable organizations not to resort to such unfair procedures.
It would be nearly impossible to differentiate between the valid reasons to which a current or future employer chose to hire or fire a person when the information available to them also include factors such as race, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs and marital status.
It may be public domain, but it’s unsettling to know companies are using such tactics to evaluate individuals, perhaps unjustly, and not in accordance to the actual position of work.
Although there are exceptions in which the above statement could be argued, as long as other means of attaining relevant information to disqualify candidates exists this should take precedents over arbitrary use of personal information attained online.
Betina Metoni is a senior at Southern Methodist University. She can be reached at [email protected].
