August 1, 2008 at 7:44 am
I would question how much digging is actually legal. With the laws around hiring practices, I think even googling someone's name would run a very high risk of returning information that could be illegal for an HR department to procure during the hiring process. Once you have searched for someone's name, it could be argued that you actively asked for personal information including race, gender, sexual preference, etc.
There is basically no privacy. There never really has been. How much you paid for your house is public domain and has always been available at the local tax office. With the internet, it has just become easier to find it all.
I don't live a very exciting life and I don't really have much to hide. So, I don't really care what information about me is available. However, I still don't think an HR department has any business looking at anything unrelated to work during the hiring process. Checking someone's educational background, work history, and (possibly) warrants and convictions seems relevant, but if I am being hired for an IT job based on my most recent marathon placement, I think there is a problem.
August 1, 2008 at 7:48 am
For better and for worse, the web has let the privacy djin out of the bottle.
My solution is very simple: live transparently. If you want to know what's going on in my perosnal life it isn't hard to find - it's on my blog. And I intermingle technical and personal stuff on my blog.
Why?
A small part of the reason is, well, it's my blog and I can do what I want (and suffer / enjoy the consequences). The larger reason is this is a transparent reflection of Andy: it's how I roll.
Have you ever heard the copout "Don't take it personally, it's just business"? Do people say that to you right after they've cut you into a 6-figure deal? Do they say that after they've said or done something to boost your community cred? Or... do they tell you that after they've harmed you in some manner - attacked your credibility or ability to generate income or cut you out of a deal or business?
I do business personally.
When I teach an SSIS class, I talk about my family. I share "war stories" about corporate battles - lost and won, successes and failures. I do this because, well, who can sit through 8 hours / day of endless Ben-Stein-with-a-southern-accent droning about technical stuff? Sometimes I need to shake it up a bit, get the minds back into the room. Personal stuff does that.
There's more to it than that. I'm basically a "live and let live" kind of guy. I may not be interested in the stuff that others write about - technical or not - but I never complain about it. Years ago I overheard someone I hold in high regard talking about personal stuff on a technical blog. He said "That's 30 seconds of my life I'll never get back." Despite this, I still hold this person in high regard.
While I may not like, agree with, or even be interested in what someone has to say about their hobby or non-related technical interests; the fact that they have a hobby and other interests is good for them - and it doesn't harm me one bit to stretch from my comfort zone, at least not for 30 seconds. If I'm so undisciplined I follow that track and those links and get distracted from the task at hand, that's not really the fault of the blogger. Is it?
Business is one of my non-technical interests. One of the things you'll consistently read about business leadership is how you should do something - every day - that is completely unrelated to work. (Or appears so on the surface, at least) Why would Drucker and Dale make such a non-sensical statement? Why would they ask leaders to "waste time" with non-work stuff?
Because life is not unidimensional.
I regularly go to client sites to consult and see a database schema that is highly normalized or highly denormalized. It's the model the textbooks dream about - and yet it is not performing, not meeting the customer's needs. I talk to database professionals who are defensive of their work, using the textbook models as justification. Each time, I tell them "If the database server were in the middle of a cornfield, and users drove out here and typed their T-SQL queries and awaited responses, this solution would work. But it doesn't work now because it has to play nice with the applications using it - right, wrong, or indifferent."
It turns out database work is also not unidimensional.
But the real reason those business gurus recommend you put down Dr. Dobbs every now and then and read People, Time, or (gasp) Cosmopolitan is this: there's a whole big world out there that could use someone with your talents. Someone reading this works in retail. Another is in advertising. Some are publishers. As crazy as it sounds, people will pay you money to solve their varying business needs.
But they're not going to pay anyone anything unless they understand their business.
If you cannot solve a problem or meet a business need, they will pay you precisely $0 USD.
This is where the rubber meets the road; where what you do translates into net worth; where actions speak along with words.
My thougts regarding anyone upset about what people can find out about you online is twofold: 1) Welcome to the connected world; and 2) If you do not want someone to know what you're doing, why are you doing it?
Andy
Andy Leonard, Chief Data Engineer, Enterprise Data & Analytics
August 1, 2008 at 7:53 am
Andy - well put!
August 1, 2008 at 7:54 am
Trader Sam (8/1/2008)
So I guess the guideline should be don't publish anything that can be linked to you that you wouldn't want published in the newspaper on the frontpage with your name and picture next to it.
Exactly!
I wouldn't say that HR is discriminating on how well you did in a marathon or that the couch in one of your home pictures was a bit worn. But, if a large portion of your pictures on your myspace page show you falling down drunk, they are going to wonder how reliable you are.
August 1, 2008 at 7:54 am
So I guess the guideline should be don't publish anything that can be linked to you that you wouldn't want published in the newspaper on the frontpage with your name and picture next to it.
The problem is, completely benign, totally safe, down right wholesome and good activities can be held against you. For example, an organization I belong to spent a morning planting food at a local community farm that will be used to feed the homeless (and that we'll help to harvest in the fall). We were in the local paper. But, because of a questionable action by that organization, at least one poster on this board has already found objectionable, I might not get hired at his company, regardless of my ability to do the job or fit in with the organization.
Personally, I wouldn't want to work at a company that did stuff like that, but it does, can, and will happen to other people.
----------------------------------------------------The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood... Theodore RooseveltThe Scary DBAAuthor of: SQL Server 2017 Query Performance Tuning, 5th Edition and SQL Server Execution Plans, 3rd EditionProduct Evangelist for Red Gate Software
August 1, 2008 at 7:55 am
I just want to note that more information does not necessarily equate to better judgment.
If we confuse the two, our judgment will only get worse as information grows.
Sometimes, less information, and more intuition, can improve judgment.
I think this issue is about judgment.
---------------------------
|Ted Pin >>
August 1, 2008 at 8:02 am
Oh, I wish. However, posting something publicly on the web makes it public, period.
One needs to behave appropriately in public. And to remember than the rules may change, and everything is likely archived.
If someone doesn't hire me because they are afraid my musical interests mean I won't be 90-hour a week cadre, they do us both a favor.
If someone doesn't hire me because they can't tolerate any religious or political diversity in the workplace, they do me a BIG favor. And I doubt they'll last too long in business.
But if they find a prospect spends hours and hours every day spewing vitriolic hatred of some group of people, in an obsessed kind of way - can you fault them for passing on that person?
If they find that I seem to have serious boundary issues, sharing far more of my internal, private life with total strangers seems reasonable, can you fault them for setting up another interview to figure out if that's really an issue? They want me to analyze databases, not tell everyone who will listen about issues in my love life.
My neighbors at home think me a bit eccentric. I haul archaic musical instruments in and out, and keep the yard in wildflowers, not lawn. But they know I'm respectful - the wildflowers never encroach on THEIR perfect lawn, I put on my pants to take out the garbage, my junk car is in the garage, not on the front lawn.
As I write this, I self-censor knowing that it might be seen by someone I work with. As with so many other things, you have to keep in mind: how would you feel if this were published on Page 3 of the New York Post?
It's not about hiding who you are. It's about showing an ability to discern public space vs private space, and the boundary between them. And that's a skill you want in most employees.
Roger L Reid
August 1, 2008 at 8:03 am
Andy, nice post, better than mine I think! I've grown to like the idea of translucency over transparency. Everyone deserves some degree of privacy, and ideally they set it themselves.
I'll have to add a note to my blog about the off topic post thing, I've been guilty of that attitude (and sometimes still am), but I find it's not a simple formula or answer. Any more would be off topic here!
August 1, 2008 at 8:12 am
Well put, R L
If a company wants to discriminate unfairly against you or your beliefs, you may have a lawsuit, but why would you still want to work for them?
August 1, 2008 at 8:16 am
Grant Fritchey (8/1/2008)
...The problem is, completely benign, totally safe, down right wholesome and good activities can be held against you. For example, an organization I belong to spent a morning planting food at a local community farm that will be used to feed the homeless (and that we'll help to harvest in the fall). We were in the local paper. But, because of a questionable action by that organization, at least one poster on this board has already found objectionable, I might not get hired at his company, regardless of my ability to do the job or fit in with the organization.
Guilty by association!
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it!;)
August 1, 2008 at 8:22 am
I read somewhere that nearly half of French men carry a second mobile phone to hide their other life from their families. I'm not dissing French people but if that stat is true, it's pretty shocking. When a portion of your life is a lie, all of it is. It's really that simple.
Andy's comment about living transparently is on the mark. My belief is that if you feel you need to hide a portion of your life to get a certain job, you wouldn't want to work with those people anyway. Find a different group that accepts all of you, not just the portion you think you can safely expose.
Kevin
August 1, 2008 at 8:28 am
Trader Sam (8/1/2008)[hr
Guilty by association!
There you go...
I was at a meeting of our town Board of Health this week (they're trying to pass regulations on Outdoor Wood Furnaces). One of those opposed to the existence of any OWF in the town started comparing us to arsonists and rapists... After shouting him down (oh yeah), I explained the falacy of his logic.
Way too many people have been trained to go to extreme places based on very little thought or evidence. Organization 'Y' has taken a stance I don't like on one issue. Then everything they do and stand for is unadulterated EEEEEEVILLLLLLLL!
All I can say is "Lighten up, Francis"
But, because just about everything and everyone uses this medium for communication, scheduling, reporting, storage... Assuming you're not sitting at home doing absolutely nothing with your life, you're popping up on here because of your stance at a community meeting, your involvement with your church, your membership on the library board, your voting affiliation, previous employment prior to your current career, alumni status at a college... And someone, somewhere is going to take offense to one of these things after doing a search on the internet. There's f' all you can do about it, so best to take Andy Leonard's stance and rather than try to hide or mask the stuff, assume it. Make it a part of you. It's a package that people can deal with or not.
----------------------------------------------------The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood... Theodore RooseveltThe Scary DBAAuthor of: SQL Server 2017 Query Performance Tuning, 5th Edition and SQL Server Execution Plans, 3rd EditionProduct Evangelist for Red Gate Software
August 1, 2008 at 8:36 am
My thoughts are that if it is out on the Internet, you are exposing anything you say "to the world". Some of these Facebook entries that I have seen have shown people how they really are. Particularly with DBAs, you have to be able to trust the individual completely. You don't want to see links to the company intranet or explicit financial data for the company because their vacation request was denied! I believe that if the candidate is stupid enough to put out there their trash, HR has the right to look it up. Companies perform background checks all the time, so to me, this is not an invasion of privacy, but analogous to "checking references". If someone is stupid enough to put something out there that could cause problems, then they deserve to have HR find it!
Todd
August 1, 2008 at 8:42 am
Have you ever noticed that, in the legal system in the US at least, the people that complain about the lack of privacy and illegal searches are usually hiding something?
I've never heard of evidence that proves you are innocent being thrown out because of an illegal search.
August 1, 2008 at 9:14 am
Great discussion, but...
Recently here in the US we had a news story about a woman who posted a false page on one of the major social networking sites. I dont recall all the details, but apparently she posed as a teenage boy and left some messages that were derogatory about a young girl. This same young girl committed suicide apparently broken hearted over what this woman, posing as a boy, posted.
As much as I really enjoy reading about those who say "transparency", and "if its on the web, its public" - do we not have to consider a potential dark and destructive side of this kind of thing IF companies are in fact phishing for web information about employees or potential employees?
OK sure, who is going to go to those lengths to "diss" someone else - maybe a really disgruntled co-worker? - but as someone who has interviewed and hired lots of people, I have never used the web to "research" anyone (unless they asked me to visit personal sites showing their work), and I am not sure I would. Just too time consuming and well, can I really believe everything I see on the web? Nada...
Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 67 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply