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Hiring and Social Network Profiles
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Social Networking - A Can of Worms!
[Send in your thoughts] - One of the most apparently controversial things we've talked about to-date - yesterday I asked whether you put much (or any) stock in looking up a potential job candidate online. I have had a lot of feedback on this - some nearly bordering on hate-mail that I could suggest such a thing. I'm going to pass along a good size group of these over the next couple of days - be sure to send in your comments too. One thing that I've had more than a few people say is that it's a bit age-based about whether you'd expect to find information about someone online. Interesting thought to ponder, just from a social standpoint.
Chris: "I think that not finding a person or very few hits is actually better than finding lots of hits. If they are all over social networking sites and forums just what are they doing during the day? Do they lose focus easily? Can they be trusted to work unsupervised? What concentration levels do they have?
Using forums is good and very different to social networking. When you need to find a solution to a problem they can be great, they can also give you loads of problems if you read a dodgy thread and follow it without thinking things through. Is good to also see if you can offer some help but it must be limited and not your days main activity. Better if you subscribe to the latest posts lists so you can get a quick overview without going on line.
At the end of the day we are employed to be DBA's not socialites."
Brendan: "How Orwellian..."
Yes, and no. I think I respectfully disagree a bit. The whole Orwellian thing is more about taking personal information (or monitoring or whatever) - not reviewing and using public information. I wasn't suggesting that you dig into people's private matters, but more look into how they present themselves (or whether they present themselves) online.
Randall: "All I can say is that I hope not too much emphasis is placed on this.
I've been working with computers for roughly 30 years; my first coding was in Fortran - using punch cards - as an engineering student in 1977. Being somewhat of a Luddite, I have no use for social networking sites like myspace - I hardly even care about cellphones.
Googling my name returns some results but nothing about me specifically - does that mean I don't exist?"
Ben: "Personally, I would assume that the individual has done a fantastic job of making sure his or her personal information is protected. To me this would indicate that the candidate has a phenomenal grasp on computer/network security. I would be more inclined to hire such a person than someone who has personal data floating around where anyone can find it."
Ryan: "I've actually not scheduled interviews for two people that had decent resumes but I found objectionable content on their public MySpace pages. Interesting, though, to look for posts on forums and such. That would give you a very good progress over the past two or three years of most applicants' technical knowledge by the questions they ask and the answers they share. "
Larry: "Surely that is unethical and illegal? Most countries would have laws \ regulations against that.
No society I know of would allow that, it goes against the right to privacy and has no bearing on his ability and possible subsequent appointment.
Not a negative comment meant from my side, but from a reputable organisation like yours I find that rather strange. Social networking sites are really for youngsters who are just trying to be 'hip' and normally are bored persons with no self esteem, so does it seem appropriate to hire someone who uses such sites?"
One item on this - it's surely not illegal - it's publicly posted information. I think it could (COULD) be an indication of someone's presentation (how they present themselves) skills and how they think through things. Most of these sites have "private" flags that let you lock down your profile. If the person has opted not to do this, I think the information can be considered. In my opinion, this is NEVER the only factor in hire/no-hire decisions. It could, however, be the difference between candidates, and could offer insights into the candidate's approach to life.
Colleges will even tell you as you go through application process meetings that your myspace/facebook/whatever will be Google'd during the application process at many colleges. They're thinking the same things - if you've posted publicly (blogs included) it shows what you're all about. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, by the way. I think it's taken that way - a negative - but it can be extremely positive too.
More tomorrow...
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See you online!
Stephen Wynkoop,
Founder
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
swynk@sswug.org
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