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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't researching the background of a candidate beyond the contents of their resume - in other words expecting them to have and ins

by pslam 12y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't researching the background of a candidate beyond the contents of their resume - in other words expecting them to have and inspecting their LinkedIn profile - illegal?

Zikes 12y ago
Nope, but thinking someone's inexperienced or untrustworthy because they don't have the business equivalent of a MySpace account is pretty stupid.
- thatthatis 12y ago
  It is a reasonable yellow flag in most industries. It isn't perfect evidence of them being inexperienced or untrustworthy, but it does increase the chance, at the population level, of that being true.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    Having zero online presence would be a reasonable flag, but if you can't find them on LinkedIn but go on to find them on GitHub, StackExchange, forums relevant to their industry, and/or a personal web site, then I would say that quite exceeds the value of a LinkedIn profile in terms of experience and trust.
    - thatthatis 12y ago
      Those are all ways to allay the yellow flag, yes, and in an exhaustive search you'd easily pass the tests. But you still raise the flag/concern in a lot of cases. And if the evaluation is perfunctory, everyone with a yellow flag might get cut for ease. It probably hurts candidates at least a little on the average over the long term, even when they have everything you've mentioned.
    - mhurron 12y ago
      > Having zero online presence would be a reasonable flag Why?
seldo 12y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand the situation it's illegal to take certain types of information into account when making hiring decisions (e.g. race, gender, religion I think, sexuality in some states, etc.). It's not illegal to go looking for more information about a candidate, but if in the course of doing so you also find information in those protected categories, it would be illegal to use that information. The act of finding it out is not itself illegal. The morality of doing so on a network not intended for professional purposes -- like Facebook, say -- is questionable. I don't do that. All that said, a LinkedIn profile specifically is obviously intended for public information, so finding it and reading it seems morally 100% okay in my book, and I do this all the time. I also google applicants to find their Github profiles if they haven't supplied them, and that seems fair to me too.
- curun1r 12y ago
  > I also google applicants to find their Github profiles if they haven't supplied them, and that seems fair to me too. We've done somewhat the reverse...we had a script that would use the GitHub API to find projects using certain technologies, measure them according to certain metrics (test coverage, LoC, etc) and resolve them to GitHub profiles which were filtered for location and then reviewed manually. The ones that passed we resolved to LI profiles and contacted about our open positions. It worked well and almost completely eliminated any discrimination along any protected class. Then again, we may have been violating the GitHub ToS, so a lawyer probably would have dinged us on that. Still, it was such an effective recruiting technique that it may be worth it. And reviewing code in GitHub is so much more enjoyable (and informative) than sifting through resumes.
- jborden13 12y ago
  > I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand the situation it's illegal to take certain types of information into account when making hiring decisions (e.g. race, gender, religion I think, sexuality in some states, etc.). I'm appalled that you are somebody that hires for a living and you don't know the basic legalities of your profession.
- mark-r 12y ago
  My name is already registered at Github by someone else, and it's not a common name at all. I just hope they're good!
evan_ 12y ago
Why would it be illegal? How would that law even be written? You'd have to define what a "resume" is, and probably create a government form to serve as a resume, and force employers to only hire people who submit that specific form...
- zodiac 12y ago
  The law could simply say employees must only consider things the applicants have submitted themselves. I can think of a few reasons for such a law - applicants have no control over the internet (eg if I share my name with some criminal who turns up when my interviewer googles me), and this makes it harder for employees to discriminate based on protected categories (race, sex, marital status etc). But as the other replies have said, it's not illegal today.
tokenadult 12y ago
No, there is nothing illegal about that at all (at least in the United States, as a general principle of law) but that appears to be a very common misconception here on Hacker News. (Thank you for saying "correct me if I'm wrong," indicating that you desire to learn something here on Hacker News.) In general, an employer has somewhat of a DUTY to hire carefully, especially if the people the employer hires will have access to personal information of other persons, or to dangerous instrumentalities, or could otherwise cause criminal or civil harm on the job. Employers who are well advised about the law of "negligent hiring and supervision" and the legal exposure that companies can have from a careless or evil employee take care to check references, to ask the references for back references, and to include a job applicant authorization for an appropriate background check (usually contingent on a firm job offer, but also as a condition for continued employment) as part of the hiring process. Employers are allowed to find out, and are EXPECTED to find out, reliable information about the public workplace behavior of the people they hire. Thinking that the job applicant can control the information flow in the entire process by how the applicant fills out a resume or an application form is one of the biggest misconceptions nonlawyers here on Hacker News have about employment law (again, at least in the United States, the jurisdiction I know best). To the best of my knowledge, there has never been, and could never be, a successful lawsuit by a rejected job applicant if an employer checked back references (for example) and found out something about the applicant's previous PUBLIC, WORKPLACE behavior that suggests that the applicant would be a bad fit for the new job.
drabiega 12y ago
It's not illegal it just opens your company up to all kinds of liability.
- pslam 12y ago
  This is what I was getting at. It opens you up to accusations of discrimination. Background checks are different to researching a candidate. They are to check that the person doesn't have a hidden criminal record, for example. Researching their private lives crosses the line. LinkedIn is different, yes, because it's intended as a professional network publicizing your work. But you better be up-front about looking their profiles up, and even then it's troublesome because profiles often include details you would never put on a resume - such as your photo. I think you should be very careful about researching a candidate for anything beyond normal background/credit checks.

by pslam 12y ago

Zikes 12y ago

Nope, but thinking someone's inexperienced or untrustworthy because they don't have the business equivalent of a MySpace account is pretty stupid.

thatthatis 12y ago
It is a reasonable yellow flag in most industries. It isn't perfect evidence of them being inexperienced or untrustworthy, but it does increase the chance, at the population level, of that being true.
- Zikes 12y ago
  Having zero online presence would be a reasonable flag, but if you can't find them on LinkedIn but go on to find them on GitHub, StackExchange, forums relevant to their industry, and/or a personal web site, then I would say that quite exceeds the value of a LinkedIn profile in terms of experience and trust.
  - thatthatis 12y ago
    Those are all ways to allay the yellow flag, yes, and in an exhaustive search you'd easily pass the tests. But you still raise the flag/concern in a lot of cases. And if the evaluation is perfunctory, everyone with a yellow flag might get cut for ease. It probably hurts candidates at least a little on the average over the long term, even when they have everything you've mentioned.
  - mhurron 12y ago
    > Having zero online presence would be a reasonable flag Why?

seldo 12y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand the situation it's illegal to take certain types of information into account when making hiring decisions (e.g. race, gender, religion I think, sexuality in some states, etc.). It's not illegal to go looking for more information about a candidate, but if in the course of doing so you also find information in those protected categories, it would be illegal to use that information. The act of finding it out is not itself illegal. The morality of doing so on a network not intended for professional purposes -- like Facebook, say -- is questionable. I don't do that. All that said, a LinkedIn profile specifically is obviously intended for public information, so finding it and reading it seems morally 100% okay in my book, and I do this all the time. I also google applicants to find their Github profiles if they haven't supplied them, and that seems fair to me too.

curun1r 12y ago
> I also google applicants to find their Github profiles if they haven't supplied them, and that seems fair to me too. We've done somewhat the reverse...we had a script that would use the GitHub API to find projects using certain technologies, measure them according to certain metrics (test coverage, LoC, etc) and resolve them to GitHub profiles which were filtered for location and then reviewed manually. The ones that passed we resolved to LI profiles and contacted about our open positions. It worked well and almost completely eliminated any discrimination along any protected class. Then again, we may have been violating the GitHub ToS, so a lawyer probably would have dinged us on that. Still, it was such an effective recruiting technique that it may be worth it. And reviewing code in GitHub is so much more enjoyable (and informative) than sifting through resumes.
jborden13 12y ago
> I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand the situation it's illegal to take certain types of information into account when making hiring decisions (e.g. race, gender, religion I think, sexuality in some states, etc.). I'm appalled that you are somebody that hires for a living and you don't know the basic legalities of your profession.
mark-r 12y ago
My name is already registered at Github by someone else, and it's not a common name at all. I just hope they're good!

evan_ 12y ago

Why would it be illegal? How would that law even be written? You'd have to define what a "resume" is, and probably create a government form to serve as a resume, and force employers to only hire people who submit that specific form...

zodiac 12y ago
The law could simply say employees must only consider things the applicants have submitted themselves. I can think of a few reasons for such a law - applicants have no control over the internet (eg if I share my name with some criminal who turns up when my interviewer googles me), and this makes it harder for employees to discriminate based on protected categories (race, sex, marital status etc). But as the other replies have said, it's not illegal today.

tokenadult 12y ago

No, there is nothing illegal about that at all (at least in the United States, as a general principle of law) but that appears to be a very common misconception here on Hacker News. (Thank you for saying "correct me if I'm wrong," indicating that you desire to learn something here on Hacker News.) In general, an employer has somewhat of a DUTY to hire carefully, especially if the people the employer hires will have access to personal information of other persons, or to dangerous instrumentalities, or could otherwise cause criminal or civil harm on the job. Employers who are well advised about the law of "negligent hiring and supervision" and the legal exposure that companies can have from a careless or evil employee take care to check references, to ask the references for back references, and to include a job applicant authorization for an appropriate background check (usually contingent on a firm job offer, but also as a condition for continued employment) as part of the hiring process. Employers are allowed to find out, and are EXPECTED to find out, reliable information about the public workplace behavior of the people they hire. Thinking that the job applicant can control the information flow in the entire process by how the applicant fills out a resume or an application form is one of the biggest misconceptions nonlawyers here on Hacker News have about employment law (again, at least in the United States, the jurisdiction I know best). To the best of my knowledge, there has never been, and could never be, a successful lawsuit by a rejected job applicant if an employer checked back references (for example) and found out something about the applicant's previous PUBLIC, WORKPLACE behavior that suggests that the applicant would be a bad fit for the new job.

drabiega 12y ago

It's not illegal it just opens your company up to all kinds of liability.

pslam 12y ago
This is what I was getting at. It opens you up to accusations of discrimination. Background checks are different to researching a candidate. They are to check that the person doesn't have a hidden criminal record, for example. Researching their private lives crosses the line. LinkedIn is different, yes, because it's intended as a professional network publicizing your work. But you better be up-front about looking their profiles up, and even then it's troublesome because profiles often include details you would never put on a resume - such as your photo. I think you should be very careful about researching a candidate for anything beyond normal background/credit checks.