More companies use services to check job applicants’ pasts

[tridim]

More employers are relying on them to search for skeletons in job applicants’ closets.
By DIANE STAFFORD
The Kansas City Star

Kansas City human resources professional Suzanne Johnson used to pick up the phone, call a company “and get honest feedback about an applicant.”

But that doesn’t happen in most organizations today, Johnson said. “And I haven’t given out much information either. It’s usually company policy.”

Thus was born a $10 billion-a-year reference- and background-checking industry. It has mushroomed in the last three years since hiring withered and hundreds of applicants vied for single job openings.

“It’s expensive to make a hiring mistake,” said Sue Christopher, a vice president of human resources in Overland Park. “We want to know as much as we can about a person before they’re hired so we can make a good hiring decision — are people who they really say they are?”

(snip)

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/21/3443853/more-employers-applicants-using.html

Be sure to read the whole article if you're long-term unemployed, it is unbelievable.

[gateley]

1. I'm fucked. nt

[earthside]

2. Catch-22

The private, personal life in the United States of America is dead.

Local, state and federal government and private businesses all believe and assert that they have the right to know everything about you ... and judge you.

It may not literally look like what Orwell described, but '1984' is here.

Most damning, of course, is the credit check ... with the bad economy and so many folks struggling to make ends meet -- maybe putting-off one bill to pay another -- how are these people supposed to get back in the black and succeed if they cannot even get a good job because of their credit history. This is another 'catch 22' development that is further impoverishing what is left of the middle class.

Distressing also are the comments left at the news article. There is this belief that business is always right, and that if you aren't just like them, then you are a deadbeat.

[tridim]

4. And the facebook thing.

My facebook profile is private, but there are lots of public and semi-public profiles on FB with my exact name and location. Do these services even provide the right data, or do they just choose the public profile that most closely matches my name? Even if I pay for a check on myself, how do I know another service wont provide different (false) information?

A $60 background check is NEVER going to be 100% accurate. IMO that means the $60 background check is completely worthless. Of course that fact is not taken into account by the employer, they just want the thumbs up or thumbs down.

[FarCenter]

5. Could employers begin asking for Facebook passwords on applications?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/could-employers-begin-asking-facebook-passwords-applications-175240701.html

The answer is "yes".

[frylock]

7. i'd be more than happy to provide my facebook password to a potential employer..

it's Fucku@55hole5.

[onethatcares]

3. had a conversation yesterday with a kid

not really a kid but a young guy at a Urgent care clinic and told him that when I started working, I didn't have to piss in a cup before being hired.

He wasn't aware that mandatory urinalysis weren't done until very recently. Hell, the first year I moved out of the house and started working (1969) I had 17 jobs that sent me w-2 forms and probably 17 that didn't.

[Javaman]

6. this is part of the rights mission...

to make the new generation unaware of the rights they have lost.

more and more young folks I talk to seem to have no problem with their personal info being on line and being accessable to everyone one including the government.

Of course it will eventually bite them in the ass, but when you are young...blah blah blah.

Thank goodness there wasn't facebook when I was young, I would be completely unhirable today.