Is There Anything We Should Know?

The economy may be going through hard times, but there are jobs to be had in Washington DC. The new Obama-Biden administration has posted over 8,000 vacancies - but before you rush to get your application in, take a look at the application form:

The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well, that are forcing job-seekers to rummage from basements to attics, in shoe boxes, diaries and computer archives to document both their achievements and missteps.

Only the smallest details are excluded; traffic tickets carrying fines of less than $50 need not be reported, the application says. Applicants are asked whether they or anyone in their family owns a gun. They must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages.

The application also asks applicants to “please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet.” 

Now obviously, the reality of political life means that requirements are more strict for these positions than is normal for a regular job, but the article did make me wonder ... How long can it be before companies start to ask for similar information?

I'm in the middle of writing a book on building an online presence, and I had planned to point out that if you participate in forum discussions, particularly on controversial topics such as politics or religion, you should use an alias that bears no relation to your real name.

But what if companies start to ask for those aliases as part of their hiring process? Does that mean you should consider just saying nothing on the Internet? Or at least nothing on any subject that might bother someone?

It seems to me that this isn't feasible - especially for those entering the workforce for the first time during a period when life is lived as much online as offline, where political campaigns organize their supporters through social networking sites and religious discussion takes place on huge and vibrant forums.

I don't know where all this is going, but I do think we're headed for a sea change in how much our employers know about us.

What do you think?

Comments

[Resume Service]

Guilt by association is alive and well, so I would have to agree with the Obama-Biden questionnaire. Outside of politics, I'm not 100% sure I agree with the employer having to know "everything," but consider this: when something tragic happens at work that involves an employee, people will immediately begin searching for a scapegoat. Scapegoat meaning "the employer." The first question that an employer will be asked is "did you know about this?" So sometimes it pays to go overboard during the screening process.

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[HR Recruitment London]

Although it is imperative that the candidate provides his/her information honestly, asking questions like what aliases you use on the internet makes no sense.

[Peter Dunn]

I think that -- as savvy as the Obama team has been about the internet -- that they know that the media will dig up the information they are asking for, as appointments become public. This is a realistic concern if they want to avoid scandals.

For an average employer, I don't think that the new sales rep or accounting manager would be held to such scrutiny, so this level of scrutiny is inappropriate and hopefully won't become common any time soon. I too would hate to see open discussion squashed for fear of not being employable.

[Alias]

Wow. This scares me. I've had some heated discussions said what may be deemed very offensive things to some, and equally I have READ the gamut of offensives on the internet.

NY State, by the way, is covered by Hire At Will laws. They don't have to give you a breath of reason why you're being terminated. I'm not up on the law specifically, but that may not apply for contractual agreements in upper management, so why should it matter what your background is and personal implementation of your free speech rights, even if they aren't always pleasing to all people. Heck, I've said some horrific things about those people who are going out and killing animals for sport. Well, that's offensive, and could be considered an embarassment to some, right? Don't I still have the right to say it? If no one does, then the animals continue suffering, don't they?

If someone says or does something offensive, which we ALL, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US, has said/done in a lifetime, all depending on the audience, how on any planet is that a company's or government administration's fault? That's something I never did understand. When I was working, I was on the receiving end of a humiliating, offensive, attack on my sexual performance potential that 'all the guys' had apparently been betting on. But that wasn't the company's fault, that was the jerk's fault who got drunk and said it.

So if companies start nipping accountability for jerk's behavior, language, opinions, by posting the At Will Agreement as terms of employment, won't this save everyone a lot of trouble? Or will that just take us to Anarchy because nothing is safe and none of us knows from where our next meals will ever come, nor will there ever be a performance incentive or employee loyalty building to keep the people who are running the company at its top competitive edge?

Does the same rule apply to the troops? Are we going to have to start fighting wars with paint guns, too? Isn't this gentleman's war how we won the Revolution? Because we were a bunch of debtors prisoners and other 'thugs' who went off to try for more than we could ever have at home?

And what about Tammany Hall? Are we now going to surround ourselves with perfect, little yes men and women who will never step out of line or think for themselves and build our governments through coercion?

And further, using Barack as an example, he, and people he's associated with, have said things that were deemed offensive about whites, according to news pieces I have heard during the campaigning. I happened to vote for him, but that was policy, because I've had it with the greed and obsenities of income discrepancies in this country.

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Of course that is very important for the voters, to know something about the person you are going to trust the nation, but that doesnt mean that you have to dig into his past and ask him things irrelevant.