After blogging about my dislikes with facebook I found a very captivating article on computerworld.com. It asks this question, would you hand over passwords to your accounts in the off chance it might land you a job? The question stems from a report that applicants for jobs with the city of Bozeman, Montana are being asked to provide information about any social networks they’re a part of with their passwords.
This is so ironic because last week I wrote about companies basing employment off people’s Facebook profile. I understand why companies are doing this because they want professionals with the highest morals and want to know who they are investing time and money in. But my beef is, Facebook is just entertainment and businesses should know how to separate the two. Nobody on Facebook treats it like a professional page to profile your job skills. It’s not a place to be moral so everyone who is a member has something, at least one thing on there that is not the best representation of themselves. If you don’t then you’re one of the people that facebook is not intended for and the reason why it is so lame now. Okay if you have pictures on there and your smoking crack you shouldn’t get hired but if I am at a party with a beer and cig in my hand, don’t judge me as a person with no morals or a slacker. It’s Facebook! It’s not real! People are on the web and become a totally different person. I type messages and comments on there that I would never say to a stranger. Giving your social network password to a potential employer is like saying “please don’t hire me”. It’s basically snitching on yourself. You can be whoever you want to be on the web and its like people don’t understand that, especially adults. Like background checks, credit reports, drug tests, and whatever else they do before hiring people is enough. What does a company need my password to my Facebook or MySpace account for? That’s the whole point of a password so you can be the only person who accesses it. But you know what’s funny even though I just talked all this trash and I think it’s stupid and don’t agree with it, I would probably still give up my passwords for that Job. What would you do? Would you give up your passwords to your social networks for a job?
http://blogs.computerworld.com/would_you_trade_your_online_passwords_for_a_chance_at_a_job
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
There are certain jobs that I think you shouldn't have a "bad" Facebook profile - those dealing with the public. If you are the PR manager for Budweiser, and on your Facebook page your drinking a Colt 45, I definitely think the company you're working for has every right to complain about what you're doing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you're just some hourly worker at the Budweiser factory - not serving the public directly then no, I don't think it should be any company's business. Unfortunately, in the crazy world we live in it does matter so I guess we have to keep our profiles clean