This is a very complex question and there are no obviously correct answers. Here in Ontario, what you did outside of business hours is the business of a prospec

This is a very complex question and there are no obviously correct answers. Here in Ontario, what you did outside of business hours is the business of a prospective employer in a certain sense. We have a law prohibiting certain forms of hiring discrimination, and as part of that it is illegal to ask a candidate questions pertaining to such things. So for example, I am not allowed to about your religious activities. But I am allowed to ask questions that do not directly or indirectly adress illegal discrimination, and asking about profession-related activities is usually on-side. That being said, it is perfectly legal for anyone to file a lawsuit suggesting that perfectly legal questions are being used to indirectly create illegal discriminatory practices. So if I never ask about religion but I only hire from my network which "happens to be" my church or my weekly Richard Dawkins Appreciation Society club... What little I know about HR suggests that hiring out of a professional network that is agnostic about discriminatory matters is legal. HOWEVER, programming networks are on shaky ground. Not because of religion, but things like Ruby Conferences seem to under-represent certain protected classes of people like women. Another example: If I put out a call for applicants on my own blog and that's the only source of applicants, am I discriminating against people who speak English competently for professional purposes but only read Hindi or Mandarin programming blogs? In ontario, that could be construed as illegal. I can't give anyone legal advice, but if your network gives the appearance of discriminating against qualified candidates in protected classes, I suggest that it's good business sense to expand your network. It's a win-win: You'll get qualified people that other employers are ignoring, and your legal costs will go way down. So... Good point about the title. And even though I am NOT saying that in an interview I refuse to hire someone who does not blog or go to conferences or tweet or whatever, my filtering mechanism could be breaking the law if it accidentally discriminates in a legal sense.