You can count on being Googled before being hired for a job. Human resources coordinators and interviewers search the web in general and social media sites in particular for candidates. It’s normal practise for prospective employers to check out your social media accounts before making a hiring decision. The organisation wants to find out who you are and what you’re like as a person. It’s scanning your past for anything that can disqualify you for employment or make the organisation appear bad.

There are a variety of options for controlling how much of a profile is exposed to the general public, if any at all. You may make your Facebook profile invisible to everyone but your friends by turning off Public Search. This has created some challenges for job seekers, as potential employers may be less inclined to interview someone who isn’t open and honest about their social media presence.‍

In certain circumstances, this has also created an uncomfortable scenario. It has become increasing followers interviewers to request candidates’ Facebook user names and passwords. Even while most companies are aware of the various privacy settings, they still want to see what potential employees are writing about themselves on their walls and to their friends, and this seems to be more common when the profile is unsearchable.

I find this extremely intrusive of personal space. The purpose of social network privacy controls is to provide users the freedom to share or conceal information about their online activities. This is especially true for those looking for work, since they are usually quite cautious about how open their profiles are. What about those who have decided not to use Facebook, or who have cancelled their account? A business may not believe the employee is speaking the truth or that he or she is unwilling to share their password because of this. The Facebook Terms of Service stipulate explicitly that users “will not share their password…, let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardise the security of their account.”

Personally, I wouldn’t want to work for a corporation that would go to such lengths to verify my identity before ever talking to me. I appreciate that the job market is competitive and that some individuals simply can’t be picky, but if job seekers band together and consistently reject these recruiters, perhaps they will stop contacting them. If an organisation is serious in learning more about a potential hire.

Though an individual would feel helpless in the face of such a blatant breach of privacy, a group protesting the practise might send a strong message to potential employers. Meanwhile, keep in mind that your online activity is being monitored and that you should use caution in whatever you post.