Jobs are hard enough to find. Employers use Facebook to weed out applicants...

Is Facebook becoming a "honey pot" for employers and personnel officers who want to keep from hiring people who might cause them problems after they're hired? Steve Johnson of The Mercury News thinks so in a January 16th article, "Those Facebook posts could cost you your job." What's worse, Facebook users don't have to cut their own throat, although many Facebook users do. There's always plenty of others - often your own friends - using their Facebook account to post that picture of you that you might not post yourself. What caught my eye in Johnson's report:

In a twist on the exploding use of online social media, employers in the Bay Area and nationwide are poring over the websites to weed out job applicants whose posts reveal that they use foul language, take drugs, associate with gangs or have other questionable characteristics. Some employers are even demanding that job candidates disclose their social network user names and passwords.  [Emphasis added.]

While Johnson says the legal and ethical implications have yet to be determined in court, would you want to be an employer trying to defend your company from a drunk driving lawsuit after the plaintiff's lawyer discovers several pictures on Facebook of your new delivery truck driver behind the wheel of his own car with a beer in his (or her) hand? Would you want to hire someone who trash-mouthed their former employer on Facebook? You can read the article for more examples at: http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_19754451.

In the last month, when we're starting to see reports again of newspaper reporter's articles and blogger's posts being scanned and recorded by Homeland Security, is there any doubt that Facebook, Google+ and other social media sites have become the starting point for private firms, public organizations or even an inquisitive neighbor building a dossier on almost any employee, political opponent or anyone else for that matter?

Sure, go ahead and change your Facebook privacy settings.  [Feel better now.] That may work until the next time Facebook changes their mind about what portion of your personal content will be released to the next company willing to pay a good price for your information.

I'll admit it. I don't like Facebook nor am I fond of any of the social media engines that entice people to freely exchange their personal privacy for convenience or "being cool." But then I'm just an old codger who "doesn't get it." Yep, and I don't want it either!