Just a quick follow-up to my previous post “Before I hire you I’ll need the keys to your home…”
I read a comment on LinkedIn that said there were no laws prohibiting employers from asking you to turn over your Facebook credentials so they can see your private information. In my non-lawyerly view I think it relates to plenty of laws that declare certain questions as “off-limits” as part of the hiring process. Age. Sexual orientation. Pregnancy. Disabilities. It is not uncommon to find details related to these personal issues shared with friends and family on Facebook but often, they are explicitly hidden from public view.
By asking a candidate for their Facebook credentials so that the employer can rummage through these personal details is no different, at least in my view, from them asking these questions directly during an interview. If certain pre-employment questions are already prohibited by law, then requiring a candidate to turn over access to that information via another avenue seems to splashdown in the same swimming hole.
Let me play a scenario:
A candidate had a pretty good interview. A few days later an HR rep from the company calls him up and says there is just one more step in the process. Since their Facebook page isn’t public, they’ll need the userID and password “just as routine”. He gives it and within a week receives a letter that he was not selected for the job.
On his Facebook page, it’s pretty clear he’s gay. Many of his posts and those of his friends refer to him and his partner. He believes that is the only reason he didn’t get the job. He thinks that asking for his userID and password wasn’t “routine” at all but merely an excuse to find out information they were prohibited from asking him directly.
His next two calls are to an attorney and the media….
Now, it may be that the company had a legitimate reason to hire someone else but the perception here is what matters. Imagine your company being dragged through the media and labeled as discriminatory. We’ve all seen what happens when the media plants an idea into the minds of its audience. The truth is often pushed to the back burner while the sensational, ratings-grabbing story rules the day. There may or may not be any legal ground but it sure makes good publicity for a hard hitting lawyer.
If this came to pass, would you reconsider asking for those Facebook credentials? Maybe sticking with traditional background checks, interview questions, reference checks, and looking at publicly available profile information with social media sites is the better choice.


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