After reading this article, I was completely flummoxed. I thought I’d seriously entered the Twilight Zone and I should expect Rod Serling to be in the hall just out of sight, cigarette in hand.
The number of things wrong with this whole situation are too numerous to mention, but I’ll start with the big ones. For starters, what I do on a social media site is my business only. If I only share things with a select group and not publicly, again, that’s my business. The next, and likely bigger issue, is that most people still use the same credentials to log in to EVERY site they visit. I’ve rambled on this issue before, but it really hits home here.
I just can’t see the justification a company might reasonably use to ask for these kinds of credentials. Mind you, I know what they want. They want to see if you’ve been posting anything which would be potentially damaging or embarrassing which might create a distraction on the job.
A less invasive option is by the employers who want you to “friend” a human resources “person” so they can have a look at what you publish for friends, but not open publicly. I’m not certain I’d consider this option, but my response to give up important login credentials would likely give them cause to never hire me in the first place.
What would happen if you created a profile just to give the prospective employer who might ask for this? How would they know if you didn’t tell them?
I’m getting a little disjointed here as I’m really irritated by the idea of this being considered “okay” by any company.
That being said, if you post something publicly which could prove to be an embarrassment later, you should have considered your original actions a little better. Now, we all make mistakes, and I believe our stories as related to realizing our actions were mistakes and adjusting ourselves accordingly could show show people how we’ve improved and are likely to fix our errors as time goes on.
