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<p>in these situations, the boss chooses the employee. All the security stuff is done by other people. And they don’t ask to see your facebook. They have more important things to look into. So, if the government doesn’t need to see your facebook for a clearance, there is no reason for anyone else to need to see your facebook. Maybe the person responsible for hiring should do their due diligence in the interview and checking with references instead.</p>
<p>This is ridiculous. </p>
<p>I keep my facebook very clean. I am friends with one of my bosses, numerous co-workers, a few of my professors, and even friends with a Senator that I interned for on his personal account. I have no problem adding you, but never ever would I give you my password. You have no business knowing what I’m talking to my friends about because that’s about the only thing that you can’t see.</p>
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<p>Or do some bad things on FB so that your account is closed by FB and nobody can access. And you can safely say I have no FB account.</p>
<p>Absolutely unacceptable. I use my login combo for other accounts (including ones with much more sensitive info) besides Facebook and I see no reason why any employer should have access to such info. Likewise, I would not ask for someone’s login and password if I were doing the hiring. </p>
<p>The only exception might be, as someone mentioned, if a particular person needed to get a security clearance. But don’t they have better methods than asking you for a password in those cases? If not, I’m not sure they’re doing their jobs correctly.</p>
<p>Tell them you don’t have a FB account. And, for job apps or etc, be sure to create another email address that you have not used for FB or other forums or posting sites. On FB, eg, sometimes searching on an email address will bring up a person’s page. Likewise, google can find your personal postings, based on your email, depending on the site.</p>
<p>How bizarre. My sense is this is ridiculously rare, but it doesnt stop a reporter for looking until they can get enough quotes to make a non-story. </p>
<p>I get the fluff calls from media all the time. They make this stuff up then look for stories and ‘experts’ to turn it into something. Up there with entertInment news replacing stuff that really matters, like world news and politics </p>
<p>Why Facebook? Why not email passwords, now or the past two decades?</p>
<p>yes we don’t have to share the password with anyone it harms you…</p>
<p>^^^ I agree with post #26. While it is possible that some companies ask bizarre/inappropriate/illegal interview questions and/or expect you to turn over your Facebook passwords, most likely they are in the minority. As someone mentioned above, reputable companies would know what is/is not appropriate to ask during an interview and this is certainly one of those things that is not appropriate and probably illegal for the reasons others have mentioned thus far.</p>
<p>There have also been recent news stories of potential employers asking people to pull up their FB account right then and there so the employer/HR person can look at the FB page without requesting the password.</p>
<p>This would be really stupid. As soon as it became known that employers do this, people would create fake FB accts.</p>
<p>And, I agree that looking over a person’s FB acct is a backdoor way to violate laws about asking particular questions that are forbidden in interviews…“Are you married?” “Are you a homosexual?” “Are you pregnant?” “Are you dating anyone?”</p>
<p>For the latter reason, I suspect that asking for FB info will get shut down legally.</p>
<p>I do wonder if those applying for secret security clearances will get asked for these, though?</p>
<p>There was a news story awhile ago about the ways in which reading someone’s facebook page could tell you a lot about them indirectly. In other words, an investigator for a security clearance might notice that eighty-five percent of those who you are linked to are homosexual, and therefore conclude that you probably are, even if you are claiming otherwise on your public page. (My understanding for a security clearance is that they’d be more likely to hire you if you were an out homosexual than if you were closeted, since the second state makes you more vulnerable to blackmail). LIkewise, if all of your friends are Evangelical Christians, one might conclude that you probably are too. If all of your friends are breast cancer survivors, in the military, etc.</p>
<p>My son is one of those really social guys who has something like 900 facebook friends – and they include a girl who was recently expelled from school for dealing drugs, a couple of teens who got pregnant, etc. I’m presuming no one would comb through his contacts to that level, but I do wonder.</p>
<p>Such an invasion of privacy. The worm cancelled his FB account a few months ago. He said his friends had moved on, and they have other ways to share pictures and news.</p>
<p>“Coming to an admissions office near you?”</p>
<p>I have even heard of financial aid counselors (the ones who determine who does and doesn’t get financial aid) getting onto facebook to see who the applicant really is before awarding any financial aid to that person. </p>
<p>It is crazy that this has become one of the methods of evaluation that is actually being used to help determine something like financial aid!</p>
<p>And now it is being used in the job world by interviewers?!</p>
<p>It makes you wonder.</p>
<p>Actually I think I’d support the financial aid counselors doing that. I think many of us wonder how exactly it is that a kid gets a brand new $30,000 car for his sixteenth birthday (when many of us have only ever owned used cars for our entire lives), lives in a nice house in a good neighborhood, has parents who have a boat, has an in-ground swimming pool, etc. and then gets financial aid for college.
I think in that case, the people who are worried about being found out probably DO have something to hide.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in the book by college consultant Michelle Hernandez she specifically advises people to be vague about their parent’s occupations (i.e. if you mom is a neurosurgeon, put down that she works in a hospital and let people assume she’s in food service or the laundry room). Presumably, if the college people poked around facebook, they might eventually conclude out that my neighbor – the Hispanic guy with the father who is a brain surgeon isn’t actually the deprived first generation college attender whose dad ‘works in a hospital’ that he has painted himself to be. Nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>So lie, basically?</p>
<p>They ask for your parent’s degrees anyway, not the occupation. So if your parent is a neurosurgeon, the colleges are going to know at the very least that they went to medical school.</p>
<p>The computers in question belong to Facebook. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the minimum sentence 10 years in prison for unauthorized access to a computer system?</p>
<p>^give ‘em your password and you are authorizing them to access your account. And, Michelle Hernandez is wrong on enough counts that folks should ignore her. The CA does ask parents’ job titles.</p>
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<p>no… there are actual investigators that go talk to an applicants friends / acquaintances / professional contacts for the higher level clearances. They also can involve multiple discussions (for hours) with special agents, psychologists/psychiatrists, polygraph people, etc. For the “secret” level ones they sometimes just send a survey to people for your friends and former employers to fill out.</p>
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<p>Would be a lot faster and less error prone to just look at one’s zip code. </p>
<p>What I’ve discovered recently, from some <em>very bad</em> research done by a colleague (they’d say so too- crappy data they had to work with so results are meaningless)… ANY headline that can include “Facebook” gets a lot of read lately. </p>
<p>Seriously, the media is now such a piece of crap.</p>