
No Hire - raganwald
http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-06-26/no_hire.md#readme
======
brown9-2
"I have just read that companies routinely review Facebook and MySpace
activity when screening prospective candidates. One allegation is that if your
profile is blocked to non-friends, they may ask you to log in in front of them
to let them have a look."

Is this allegation backed up by any fact? Besides that one town in Montana
which got in trouble for doing this and has since stopped (I believe this was
posted a few days ago).

I may be naive but I really can't imagine this practice being all that
widespread - if it's not more than a myth spawned by one or two idiotic hiring
managers.

Seems like a lot of passion spawned by not a whole lot of fact.

~~~
carbon8
Googling someone and checking out their Facebook and MySpace? Yeah, it's
common. I've seen surveys that put it at about 1/3 of hiring managers doing
it. Is it common for them to make you log in? Probably not, but he didn't say
it was.

~~~
bcl
I'm not in management, but have been asked to help out reviewing candidates
before. I always google them, but not to look for dirt. I'm interested in how
active they are in the open source community. What kinds of projects have they
helped out with, etc. I expect any company hiring me to have done the same.

But asking for or expecting access to private websites like facebook? No way.
The OP looks to me like someone looking for something to rant about.

~~~
mblakele
I'm not interested in a candidate's personal life, but I am interested in
development experience. So I run a web search too, but it can be noisy. Lately
I've found mailing list activity is more relevant. For example,
<http://markmail.org/search/?q=from%3A%22Linus+Torvalds%22>

~~~
moe
That Torvalds guy is clearly a bad hire as he apparently spends most of his
energy on some useless pet project.

------
raganwald
A personal observation: I'm also a hiring manager, and I struggle with this
problem on both sides of the table.

I Google candidates for their professional opinions and activities. But what
do I do if I find their profile on a public site like HN? Some of the comments
are going to be useful fodder for an interview _I noticed you posted a comment
on HN suggesting OOP has had its fifteen minutes of fame. What do you see
replacing it? ..._ But I might also read opinions about politics. What if the
same person has posted HN comments about Obama the Magic Negro? I really don't
want to know what they think and why in the context of hiring them.

Worse, what if I see a comment from the same person saying one of _my_ posts
is absolute garbage and that I'm an idiot? Now I may have compromised my
impartiality.

I don't know the answer. I wouldn't look up a candidate in something obviously
personal like Facebook or MySpace, but I have no idea how to handle stuff like
HN that contains what I perceive to be a mix of relevant technical opinions
and personal, wrong-side-of-the-privacy-line stuff.

I don't know.

~~~
sethg
When I started blogging I made a conscious decision to make everything public
and put everything in one place. You go to my blog and you see my opinions
about computer programming, Judaism, economics, sex, whatever.

I wonder if my descendants will consider this kind of behavior quaint if not
dangerously naïve. _Of course_ , they might say (might will say?), you
maintain multiple online identities and even if everything posted under them
is publically readable, you give one URL to the guy interviewing you, and then
a different one to the officemate who has become your friend, and maybe you
keep your really emotionally sticky stuff on a third site that only two or
three people _know_ is connected to your true identity. And it would be an
extreme social gaffe--a sort of electronic peeping-tom-ism--for anyone to
reveal "the guy who posts here also writes this blog" to an unauthorized
party.

~~~
samlittlewood
Stay that way, unless you are prepared to go to extremes to maintain separate
identities (physical, temporal, financial). Anything casual will crumble under
pressure, so it's best not to have the false sense of security.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Anything casual will crumble under pressure..._

This is true, but it misses the point. Keeping your online identities separate
isn't a security measure. (And when it is -- when you're a political dissident
facing imprisonment or torture -- it's very very risky.)

You maintain separate identities because it sends a social signal. The signal
is "I recognize the distinction between professional and casual behavior;
between public and private behavior; between an artistic pose and heartfelt
sincerity. I understand basic social and literary conventions and I know how
to use them."

A classic example: Fake Steve Jobs, who I think is a pretty good model of
proper literary behavior. Daniel Lyons wanted to have some fun, so he
concocted a persona and started a blog under that persona's name. The
persona's voice is distinct from that of Daniel Lyons, the journalist (which
is why so many people say things like "man, he was so good as Fake Steve; why
are his _Newsweek_ articles so uninspiring?"), which in turn is almost
certainly distinct from Mr. Lyons the person, Mr. Lyons the family member, and
Mr. Lyons the party animal. But Lyons obeys the conventions. He doesn't just
type everything that comes into his head into one blog.

Obviously you should expect your prospective employers to Google you and read
your public writing, particularly that which might pertain to your field. (I
told my new employer all about my writing on HN, for example.) But just as it
is your responsibility to observe proper social and literary convention, it is
also your employer's responsibility: Just because it's easy to riffle through
Facebook and MySpace (the online equivalent of following your prospective
employee around at night, peeking into his or her windows) doesn't mean that
employers are ethical when they do so.

But Google makes window-peering so easy that it's sometimes hard to avoid. So:
Pseudonyms, my friend, pseudonyms. Not to mention Pepys' brilliant invention:
the posthumous diary. (I sometimes wonder if I should start a web service for
writing posthumously-published blog posts. But it's kind of the anti-viable
online business: It has _negative_ word of mouth (your customers would prefer
that their friends and family don't know about it), and the writers have
pretty poor interaction with the audience, and nobody will ever have enough
faith in your privacy policy or performance warranty.)

~~~
samlittlewood
Fair call - I had various friends and acquaintances in mind who use separate
identities to behave in ways that would have unwanted repercussions if those
identities were ever reunited. Some examples are moonlighting, sock puppetry,
and whistle blowing.

One thing about pseudonyms - it is in your audience's interest to maintain the
ruse as they benifit from it's existence.

PS: Posthumous diary service - if someone can create a trusted service that
provides timed key release - so many services can be hung from it.

------
po
What's up with using github as a blog? Now when I see a link that says github,
instead of classifying as "might be interesting code" I have to think "might
be a personal rant"?

I get that its an experiment; and I think it's a moderately clever idea... I
just like that github is all about the code. If this becomes popular, I think
github needs to roll blogging into their site as a feature so that it can sit
in a separate namespace than code projects.

~~~
sant0sk1
I don't think we have to worry too much about this becoming popular,
especially since GitHub pages allows for git-based blogging from your own
domain.

Also, raganwald's blog is _usually_ all about code, which is why he set it up
on GitHub to begin with. This seems to be a deviation from the norm.

------
blhack
Everyone seems to be looking at this backwards...

I thought that the prevailing view around here was that, when applying for a
job, you are interviewing the company as much (and if you're talented, even
more) than they are interviewing you.

To me, if an employer asked me anything about my HN, or Slashdot, or reddit,
or gibsonandlily, or facebook, or myspace, or whatever other silly social
network I had signed up for in the past profile, it would be a "thank you for
your time, but I'm not interested" response from me.

I suspect that the type of employer that has issues with boundaries like
facebook and myspace is also going to have issues with boundaries like "I am
using the two weeks allowed per year of vacation to go to the lake with my
family. I am not on call right now, do not get angry if I don't respond to
your emails immediately".

In other words, them even asking about your profile should be a major red
flag.

~~~
rapind
I agree that it's a two-way interview, and that's really the only way to look
at it. Even if you _really_ need a job, you're better off waiting to find a
good fit.

However, I disagree than a potential employer looking over our online persona
is necessarily a negative thing. In fact, I think it can be positive in that
it suggested the hiring manager is doing some real work to check out their
candidates. Just like anything there are lines you can cross, but that's just
common sense.

Asking for a potential hire to login into their FB and show their world shows
a complete lack of common sense in almost any context.

Checking out a potential hire's technical background for a technical position
is certainly within the realm of common sense, and I think it would be
negligent not to. There may be a wealth of relevant information available
online about the candidate, and this shouldn't be ignored.

Likewise, I would recommend putting in the effort to check out the employer's
history too. Using google, wayback machine, chief staff members, etc. It
doesn't take long and give's you a much better idea about the opportunity.
Most employer's would find that kind of research shows commitment to finding a
good fit.

------
TrevorJ
I have a personal friend who was called into his manager's office one day. The
manager had my friends' myspace page open and was browsing through pictures of
him and his girlfriend. This apparently went on for a couple minute with my
friend standing there.

The overall gist of the encounter was an attempt on the part of my friends
manager to scare him into closing down his accounts (The employer was afraid
of my friend talking about the company he works for online.)

~~~
yhgfrtygbh
Create a page in the manager's name, photoshop a couple of pictures of him and
his donkey-friend.

~~~
worldhello
Although it seems fun, there are real laws against doing that...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If it's not true.

~~~
cschneid
"Yes judge, I truly did photoshop images of him getting..... by a donkey."

------
uuilly
Agreed. If anyone ever pulled that on me I'd walk out on the spot. And my FB
page is utterly innocuous.

------
gamache
Where is this "one allegation" coming from? To me, this sounds like a
righteous rant against something that didn't happen to the author or anyone he
knew, and rarely happens at all.

~~~
icey
I'm just guessing, but:

[http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/19/want-a-job-hand-
over...](http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/19/want-a-job-hand-over-your-
facebook-password/)

~~~
rapind
What I find really unusual is this happened in Bozeman. I spent a couple weeks
there an a ski/backpack trip and the culture was _extremely_ liberal.

My take on the situation though after reading the article is just a case of
understandable incompetence. They just didn't realize what a big deal it was.
They were looking for a limited number of _bad_ flags and didn't really think
it through. Someone with very little social networking experience, read some
nightmare accounts in some FUD article and made a really dumb decision.

------
xsmasher
Your Facebook page shows all sorts of information that should _not_ affect the
hiring process - like your race, religion, marital status, number of children,
and sexual orientation. I can't imagine anyone who thinks it would improve the
hiring practice.

At the same time I have over a thousand helpful, hopefully well-written posts
on message boards that I'll be happy to direct any employers to. They're a
better resume than my actual resume, and harder to fake.

------
s3graham
I think there's only one suitable name these days for your child: John (or
Jennifer) Smith. Or whatever Wolfram says is best for hiding amongst the
chaff.

Sure, it's a shame they won't carry the family name, but they'll thank you in
20 years.

------
bayareaguy
As someone who screens candidates where I work, I often check if a
particularly worthwhile candidate is registered on LinkedIn in part to cross
check details they provide on their resume and occasionally add them as a
"connection". I think this is the limit of acceptable behavior, in part
because LinkedIn's focus is professional.

The only exception I can think of would be a job in which maintaining a highly
public Facebook or MySpace page was itself an essential function.

~~~
mcantor
I agree. It seems like LinkedIn is uniquely appropriate in terms of online
searches, since it was designed with professional jobs in mind.

------
miked
>> So what do I think of sifting through the internet for personal information
about candidates? It isn't performance-based.

Two days ago I made one of the bigger decisions of my life: I decided to
abandon any attempt to salvage a bio-tech company I co-founded ten years ago.
One of the other founders had a quite brilliant invention that I'm more
convinced than ever will work. Yet, after ten years, I finally realized that a
company is fundamentally its people and how they interact. His performance
(narrow sense) as a scientist was tremendous. As a human being? Well, there's
the fact that he's been in and out of jail several times for assault and
battery as well as drunk and disorderly. And the fact that every time we get
close to making a major advance he steps in to sabotage it, which he has done
several times by calling customers, vendors and big investors and screaming at
them. And the fact that he takes absolutely no responsibility for his actions.

Some of his craziness is apparent from his web page. If he'd had a web page
ten years ago I might never have gotten involved and wasted ten years and a
lot of money pursuing a dream that depends on someone who has failed at
everything in his life and is absolutely intent on making sure he fails at
this.

So, raganwald, it all depends on what you mean by "performance". One thing
that I am 100% certain of, how someone treats other people, how much they
complain instead of take action, etc., is largely what _I_ mean by
performance. One dirt bag can make everyone else on the team miserable, and
drive the good people away.

I would never ask to log into anyone's social web page. I will always check on
their background, including using search engines.

------
ghshephard
So, let us assume that facebook/linkedin/twitter/livejournal postings are
completely irrelevant to an individuals suitability for a job.

What about previous job experiences?

Is it acceptable for an employer to query previous employers/coworkers as to
how effective they were in related jobs? Let us say you are coming into a
company applying for the position of a kernel developer, and your last two
positions at companies were doing the same job. Is it okay for the hiring
manager to talk to your previous managers and coworkers to see how good you
were at your Job, how effective a developer you were?

Or is it the case that all screening outside of A) the interview and B) the
references that the candidate hands over, are off limits?

In silicon valley it's a pretty common procedure to ask for internal
suggestions when a position comes up, and people think of who they've worked
with over the last 10 years that might be suitable for a position - to some
degree that's an "off-the-books" reference check, and I'm wondering if people
feel that's an acceptable thing to do when hiring?

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Is it acceptable for an employer to query previous employers/coworkers as to
how effective they were in related jobs?_

Of course. This is called "checking references" and is standard practice that
nobody disagrees with. The key words here are "employers/coworkers" and
"related jobs", which are distinct from "high school friends" and "church
socials".

------
allenbrunson
There may be some good points in here, but it strikes entirely the wrong tone.
This kind of in-your-face attitude is just going to harden everyone's existing
positions.

~~~
rcoder
I whole-heartedly disagree. It's important to take a stand against
ineffective, borderline-illegal screening processes used by employers.

People who frequent HN may not be subject to this problem as much, but in
general, most of the power in an interview is concentrated at the employer's
side of the table, rather than the applicant's. For them to abuse that power
by prying into people's personal lives is unethical and unfair.

Hiring managers should know better, but it sometimes takes push-back from the
community to help them see the issues involved. The recent change in policy in
Bozeman shows that such feedback _can_ be effective.

~~~
allenbrunson
"taking a stand" is not the same thing as causing a scene. i personally
stopped reading this rant after a paragraph or so, because of the author's
poor attitude. i doubt i'm the only one.

------
zacharypinter
All the more reason to appreciate the trend towards starting your own company.

The internet has definitely changed our views on privacy. Overall, I think
this is a good thing. But it can be disturbing when you realize how much
information a 10 minute search can pull up. For example, I just found out that
googling my name turns up a page on whitehouse2.org where I listed several
political positions. I generally try to keep anything associated with my full
name fairly neutral and professional, though I hadn't even considered Google
when signing up for that site.

------
byrneseyeview
This is very one-sided. Hiring someone is a big investment (spending time and
risking company culture, in addition to the money). Having more information is
always useful.

I've looked at Facebook profiles when judging potential employees. I've never
ruled anyone out because of it, but one person got a lot closer to the job
when I saw that that he spent his off hours talking about what he'd spend his
work hours doing.

Basically, there are three possibilities when an employer looks at your
Facebook: a) they like what they see (so they have better information, and
you're more likely to get a job, b) they are neutral (nobody loses), or c)
they dislike it (so by denying them access, you're artificially boosting your
prospects -- cheating them out of the employee they want, and cheating that
employee out of a job).

It's good to be suspicious of people trolling for personal data -- but I'm
much more suspicious of efforts to hide information.

~~~
scscsc
The hiring process is a negotiation between two sides. The more information
you have, the better you'll do.

It's not fair for an employer to look in your private life; any more than it
is fair for the potential employee to look at confidential company data. How
would you like that? The company is hiding information, thereby cheating you
into a job.

~~~
tptacek
It stopped being "your private life" when you published it.

~~~
sethg
I think it's a positive good that the Internet allows me to hear about the
private lives of people who are otherwise (and may forever be) strangers to
me. If for example I was struggling with depression or alcoholism or some
other issue that I didn't want known to the public, it might help me to read
blogs by other people who are dealing with the same problems. In order for
such communication to happen, though, people need to feel free to publish
private stuff anonymously and rely on a social norm that discourages potential
employers from snooping.

~~~
tptacek
Here you have conflated the concept of "private" with the concept of
"personal", and then built an argument on the resulting misconception.

It stops being private when you publish it to the world. It doesn't stop being
personal. Some public, personal details cannot lawfully be considered in a
hiring decision. But most can. It is _your responsibility_ to guard your
privacy. It isn't your prospective employer's.

------
dmm
The proper response if a potential employer wants to see a private profile is
something like, "Oh of course, I imagine you want to verify my religion, you
don't want any of those dirty (jews|christians|muslims) in here." And then you
leave.

------
krakensden
It's a nice sentiment, but I'd guess most people looking for a job right now
can't afford that sort of... principled stand. Job seeking is nearly always a
position of weakness.

~~~
raganwald
If you are mixing money and principles, we have different definitions of the
word "principle."

To me a principle is something that is so important I am willing to make
sacrifices and suffer indignities to protect it. It isn't a "nice-to-have,"
it's a non-negotiable. In fact, I would say that you don't know whether
something is a principle or not until you are looking at having to sell your
home to avoid foreclosure because you won't compromise it.

JM2C on the word...

~~~
alex_c
I actually agree with the grandparent comment, while reading your essay I was
thinking very much the same. You - and many people on HN, I suspect - have the
luxury of turning down job offers you don't like, because you know you have
other options. What happens when you DON'T have options? What happens when not
only your house but your ability to support your kids is on the line, you've
applied to hundreds of jobs with no responses, and this is the first solid
lead? What happens when you're NOT a highly competent IT professional in a
position of strength?

I completely agree that the practice is wrong, but I don't think that "fine,
don't hire me, I don't want to work there anyway" (with the implied "because I
have choices") is the most constructive approach.

~~~
raganwald
I always had this attitude about certain things, even when I was much younger
and had far fewer options. For example, although it is far less of an issue
today, when I started in my career there was a lot more overt racism in play.
I refused to work in places that had a racist culture, and in fact I did quit
at least two jobs I can recall over this, and at that time quitting cost me
serious money and security.

Now I have kids and a mortgage, but let me look you (virtually) straight in
the eye and tell you: No way am I _ever_ going to tell them that I got down on
my knees and sold my dignity as a human being "for their sake." That isn't a
value I want to pass on to the next generation.

My rant is definitely not constructive, I agree with you there. But it is
passionate, and I am far more interested in persuading fellow hackers to start
their own businesses or seek more enlightened employers than I am in
persuading employers to change their ways.

------
tedunangst
re: The Prisoner, by banned in the US, do you mean "the network chose not to
show it because their audience probably wouldn't like it"? Or banned as in
actually banned?

~~~
raganwald
Somebody or somebodies chose not to show it in the US for a decade. The
episode was not offered to US networks at all. The official reason given was
the presence of hallucinogenic drugs, even though four or more other episodes
featured drugs. I doubt it had anything to do with the audience, it was likely
backroom manoevering.

The US Networks didn't "ban" it, they weren't offered it in the first place,
so their hands are clean of censorship. Did they tell the producers that the
episode was unacceptable? I don't know. Since they didn't receive it, it never
went as far as the FCC or whomever issuing a ruling against it.

The video lined in the post gives an account using the verb "ban" and I went
along with that.

------
quisxt
I wonder how much background checking the feds did on No. 6 before they hired
him to be the warden of Alcatraz.

(an absolutely beautiful casting decision)

------
zxcvb
Asking to see my facebook profile is like asking to see my family photo albums
including any pictures that include my friends.

Would your manager allow you to look through every photograph ever taken in
their life?

------
trickjarrett
Rather than force employees or potential employees to show you their Facebook
profiles, what the company SHOULD do is make it clear, at the time of hiring,
what your company's rules are for social media. Have a clear, concise, no grey
area, document which explains their stance on it.

Being as deeply connected in social media as I am, I feel awkward being at a
job which doesn't have one of these.

~~~
jrockway
Why is this necessary? It is not your employer's business to worry about what
you do when you aren't at work.

~~~
Tangurena
When it becomes a public issue, such as a teacher or CEO with naughty
pictures, then it reflects real badly on the organization. Facebook and other
sites become a public record of you and your activities.

One case that might not have happened is the Australian worker who called in
sick, then wrote on Facebook that they're still trashed:

<http://www.hrblunders.com/was-facebook-sick-day-star-framed/>

Swiss worker says: _I can't come to work because I'm too sick to use a
computer, then logs into Facebook._ Result: fired.

<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090428/1140394681.shtml>

~~~
jrockway
Those are underlying problems that are unrelated to social media. Everywhere
I've worked, it doesn't matter why you don't come to work, vacation and sick
days come from the same "bank". So there would never be a reason to lie if you
just wanted to stay home and watch TV all day.

As for reflecting badly on an organization... this is something society needs
to get over. Why would you judge an entire organization based on the actions
of one person? And, where do you draw the line? Is it OK to discriminate
against someone who blogs frequently? (Their poor grammar and tired ideas
makes your organization look bad.) Is it OK to discriminate against someone
who likes to hang out in the pub with friends. (Those pictures make your
employees look like a bunch of lazy drunks.) Is it OK to discriminate against
gay people? ("God says being gay is wrong," so that's got to make your
organization look bad.)

My point is, everything makes your organization look bad. But when you hire
someone, you are trading money for work, you aren't purchasing a slave. So
anything that an employee does that's not on behalf of the company should not
reflect on the company in any way (negatively OR positively). It should only
reflect on that individual.

