It is no secret to many involved in the business world that we investigate our potential & current employees as part of our Quality Assurance. We want to make sure that anyone we hire is at all times, the sort of person we wish to maintain in our company and we use whatever tools we have at our disposal to do so.
However, I was on my way home from town and a news report was talking about how most people were unaware that a lot of businesses did this, and that they feel it is wrong.
Social Media Sites (Particularly Facebook) is an invaluable tool in the employers arsenal, as Facebook allows employer to actually access account information, despite the privacy settings that have been enabled. Facebook offer this currently only to a few companies, but any company (ours included) has spoken to Facebook and we're able to contact them, asking for specific information related to certain individuals accounts.
Personally, as an employer I see nothing wrong with this because I want to know the person I employ is actually a valuable asset to my company. As it is my company you're working for, I believe I have the right to know a bit more about you, and as most people lie on their Resumé I take it into my own hands to find out all about them.
We've decided not to hire people on the basis of their Social Media accounts, because of the content put on them. We don't snoop for personal information, we just want to know more about the person we're going to hire, and if they're a nice person.
What are your views on this? How do you feel about the fact that myself, and millions of other employers are actively looking at your Facebook accounts (when you apply to us) in an attempt to gather more information about you, and to reach a verdict on your employment?