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How do prospective employers go about screening candidates' social networking profiles if they have high privacy settings and are not friends with the person? Do they have some "back door" access if they pay FB enough money to let them see everyone or some other privacy violation of that nature?

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@foampile - it's an important question, but not one that can be definitively be answered by the community here. Anyone who was aware of such a "backdoor" access to a social media site is unlikely to publicise this, especially on another social media site. Similarly companies that wanted to do detailed background checks utilising experts to undertake "social hacking" ( scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=anatomy-of-a-social-hack ) are also unlikely to respond. Finally, local legal rulings could potentially overturn any answer provided at any time. – GuyM Dec 2 '12 at 17:58
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Cleaned up comments. Please take any further discussion of the issues that were/are previously present with this question to the relevant post on Meta.workplace about this question. – NickC♦ Dec 17 '12 at 23:20

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up vote 13 down vote

As an employer, I routinely search for names of candidates as part of the pre-screening process. In addition, if the candidate's resume mentions a blog, twitter account, linked in account, or public Facebook page, I check those. I don't use any "back door" methods (and doubt they exist) but I will do things like "hm, the blog domain is codebunny [I just made that up, don't go search it] I wonder if I will find anything searching for that in addition to or instead of the candidate's legal name?" and I will follow links from say your StackExchange profile to your Twitter profile to your website and so on.

I can learn both good and bad things from such a search:

  • this candidate seems to know quite a lot about technologies we use
  • this candidate has been publicly using technologies for as long as the resume says, or perhaps has used the phrase "I am just getting started with" far too recently to agree with the resume
  • this candidate is a good writer, or a good speaker, and is generous with that technical knowledge
  • this candidate is rude, or arrogant, or a showoff
  • this candidate is connected to a number of people or communities that are important to us
  • this candidate doesn't seem to know how or why to ensure private things are kept private

I always keep in mind that there may be many people with the same name, and that the person I find in a search may not be the person who is applying to me. I have never voted "hire" or "no hire" simply because of something I found from a search. It has been fodder for interview questions though. And none of this is new - we used to search for what people were posting on usenet newsgroups, 20 years ago, for just the same reasons.

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I would suggest that before applying for a role, knowing your "internet footprint" under any/all user names, including an image search, is a sensible step. – GuyM Nov 30 '12 at 22:23
up vote 6 down vote

Quite frankly, to the best of my knowledge - they don't crack your settings and screen your profile. In fact, the variation of how employers view social media profiles is incredibly diverse these days - the whole phenomenon is too new to have a single right answer or common norm for all employers. I've seen everything from the very thoughtful (and in my mind, honorable) post that Kate Gregory offers, to a deliberate effort to avoid them entirely. I haven't, yet, seen an employer go out of their way to "crack" a profile. In most cases, I would expect that to be seen as unethical and something a reasonable company would avoid.

However, realize that nothing about you or your behavior online is really "private". I have several friends who do not even maintain social media profiles because of privacy reasons, and yet pictures of them, their legal names, and other activities are blogged, tweeted, commented on, or otherwise updated through their friend's social media activity. So it's not just your privacy settings that are the control over what an employer can and can't see.

A common guidance I've seen that makes sense to me is to focus on enhancing your online identity through positive, professional behavior - write good articles, ask thoughful questions, be professional in your communications and be honest. Try to avoid an online identity that features behavior you don't want to be accountable for - certainly we've all done a few silly things we are glad our employers haven't seen, but try to avoid building an online community for yourself that encourages and highlights this behavior.

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thanks. what i would like to do is know things like which employers do and which don't make these kind of checks and focus on the ones that don't. because i think they are just disrespectful. as is the drug screen. i am okay with the criminal background check but i think snooping into someone's FB or urine is none of any employer's business. i am also ok with firing someone who shows at work drunk or high but that's different from pre-employment drug screen. however, it is hard to ask those questions directly when you start the application process. that's why i think (cont.) – amphibient Dec 1 '12 at 2:01
that a DB of employers listed by what they do (similar to how careercup.com lists interview questions) would be a nice resource to a job seeker who has self-esteem and won't sell his soul for a handful of dollars – amphibient Dec 1 '12 at 2:02
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Hi Beth, I heard at one time there were employers who actually had the nerve to ask candidates to provide their Facebook login and password! I'd think I'd have to be pretty desperate to work at a place like that. So some may not use hacking tactics but may instead resort to tried and tested bullying tactics..... abcnews.go.com/Technology/… – jmort253♦ Dec 1 '12 at 2:29
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@foampile - IMO, anyone has the right to refuse any pre-screen, so long as they are willing to put the job at risk. The balance will change and shift as people refuse or agree. Sure - if someone sets up a DB of employer's hiring practices, that'd be a great resource. I have to say, though, the Q&A format of a StackExchange won't be a good place for that. – bethlakshmi Dec 3 '12 at 15:18
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@jmort253 - that's part of what I vaguely alluded to in saying policies are pretty diverse. IMO - the reason these employers managed to hit the media is the shock value and the extremism of the case... so until I hear this is common, I'm uninclined to loose sleep over it. There are also still employers who say incredibly racist things in interviews, who demand sexual favors and do other things that are even more illegal. Ideally in the future we'd manage legislation that says that anyone EVER forcing you to disclose private credentials is illegal... – bethlakshmi Dec 3 '12 at 15:39
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