I discuss this topic in my class and want to write a paper on this subject. Given that 70% of employers view candidates' social media accounts, are companies obligated to disclose this to candidates?
To date candidates are protected from having to provide employers with their usernames and passwords, however, companies continue to claim they can find out the "type of person" is by looking at their Facebook, Twitter, etc.
The ethical issue is based on the information contained in social accounts. Most social media platforms can contain identifying information about the candidate. Is it ok for recruiters to find out your race, nationality, sexual orientation, or pregnancy status by looking at Facebook?
Here is the CareerBuilder survey discussing the percentage of companies using social media: https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/social-media-survey-2017
I'm trying to gather a wide array of opinions on the matter.
Thank you!
Aisha Leach Thank you for adressing this topic. Transparency is a key for building trust between employers and candidates. Of course there should be an obligation to disclose this to the candidates that they have been investigating the candidates social media. Lack of trust will eventually hurt employers as well. We will soon probably get a situation were people start hiring companies to fix their social media accounts for career building purposes. It is probably going on already. There are many challenges on many levels here. People who have social media accounts (most of us) need to build an understanding that social media actually is public.
I agree with Kjartan Skogly Kversøy, they do have an ethical obligation. However, at the same time, modern humans have too great an expectation of privacy. I've made this comment before, and I really want to write a paper on the topic some day, but the privacy that we consider to be normal is really a modern luxury. As another RGer mentioned in a discussion, there are societies which don't even have a word for privacy.
So I think that while there's an expectation that a prospective employer won't go snooping around your social media accounts, without first telling you, we have too much of an expectation that our "private" information, which we post on an essentially open forum, won't be scrutinized.
Don't you have to agree to Facebook's terms and conditions when you open an account? I am sure that in it, Facebook make you agree that EVERYTHING you send them becomes their property, to do what they like with. So I think it is amazing that people give Facebook all their personal details then turn round later and claim that they have broken some ethical guideline when someone else uses it. I'm sorry, I am not very sympathetic. I have never had a Facebook account and never will.
Aisha Leach Daniel Goldman Tony Maine ... people should - but they don't. ... companies should - but they don't. I still think both companies and candidates have everything to gain from transparency. I know of examples were people hire experts to answer their personality tests in recruting situations. The candidates will eventually "fight" back. There is a need for critical reflection both for companies and their recruitment strategies and social media users and their endless naivite when it comes to their idealized conceptions about privacy.
Kjartan's response made me consider - of all the on-line forms and questions one has to fill in these days, how many are actually filled in by the people to whom the questions are directed? There are cases of students with almost zero knowledge of English handing in perfect Grade A+ answers to assignments. But I don't think this is transparency. It's exactly the opposite.
I want to add that while it’s true candidates can choose to make their profile “private”, the same survey indicated that 57% of companies will NOT consider a candidate that has a private profile!
Aisha, that's interesting. So what do companies do with people who don't use FB and other forms of social media? I'm not sure I fully buy the results of that survey. That said, I'm not convinced that a company has a moral obligation to tell potential employees that it will look at their FB profiles. The FB profiles are public, unless made private, so I think anyone has a right to look at them. If a person wants to keep the information private, either make the FB profile private or don't use social media.
I agree with John. Anyone unaware of the public nature and risks of social media is orbiting a different universe these days. I don't think disclosure of a social media review is an ethical obligation, but would agree that it contributes to the transparency of the job candidacy process. We warn our students coming in and going out the door to check their social media, and what could constitute something that would discourage a prospective employer, and still hear of postings that range from unwise to outright problematic. There seems to be a firm belief that all it takes to offset any social media review concerns is contained in their privacy settings. That information from their account would not migrate to someone else's who is not as careful is somehow not getting through to all.
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