Respose to Professor Johnson's Post

"Employers are increasingly relying on social networking sites to screen job candidates. Do you think this is appropriate? What are the OB issues? One way to think about this is to ask the following: What individual-level, group level, and organizational outcomes might this practice have? Go to ConsumerAffairs.com for additional information on this practice."

This topic is one that is much debated and it seems that both sides feel pretty strongly.  It absolutley pertains to OB because it's a question of ethics in information technology, discussed in Chapter 2 of our textbook, Organizational Behavior, edition 9 by Griffin Moorhead.  I personally feel that it IS appropriate for employers to use these avenues to get a better idea of who their candidates really are.  Of course organizations want to hire the best person for the job, why wouldn't they?  So I think it's completely fair for them to investigate their applicants via online social networking.  They want to make sure the person they are about to invest a lot of money in is going to be right for the job.  A lot of people feel that employers who do this are violating privacy and feel that they should not be allowed to pass judgement for what they may find on these sites.  However, like the article in Consumer Affairs points out, I think that if people don't want others to see inappropriate pictures of them or if people don't want others to pass judgements on them, they shouldn't post certain things on the internet where it known that virtually nothing is private.  Besides, I don't even understand why people feel the need to post ridiculous pictures of themselves on their facebook/myspace pages anyway...of course people are going to look at these cites and formulate opinions about them...isn't that what these people want?  Why else would they post pictures and status updates for everyone to see?  If people would keep their social networking profile professional and mature, they wouldn't have anything to worry about.

Have you ever looked someone up on facebook to get a better picture of who they really are?  Did you gain helful insights or learn something about the person you didn't previously know?  Do you think employers should be allowed to screen candidates via Facebook or other social networking sites?