Its oh so quiet Shh Shh

[kibakiba]

Your house must smell like roses and pretty flowers or something.

[EasternGirl]

I think it is ridiculous for an employer to look at someone's Facebook page! This is a perfect example of why my FB page is blocked to anyone but friends and family.

[Light of Dae]

er yes n no. I think if I were an employer I'd want to have a heads up if I'm going to be hiring someone who 'according to FB' parties every weekend or something like that. I wouldn't let it define if that person gets a job or not but it would have an impact. Plus like you noted, you can set your privacy so not just anyone can view your stuff.

[ConcinusMan]

We have almost 4 or 5 inches of snow and it's coming down in huge quick flakes. I love it! I just hope that our power doesn't go out... The snakies would all have to sit in my bra with me while I read or somthing.

Vancouver (WA, U.S.A.) got quite a bit overnight last night. Winter wonderland this morning. Mom sent pics to my phone.

Still not a drop of precip at my place in over a month. Sunny, 68.

[EasternGirl]

I want snow! Yeah, but if you think about it...that is really an invasion of privacy...the fb thing. I don't really think an employer has a right to know what I am doing on my own time...as long as I am professional at work and get the job done. I bet an employer wouldn't want employees knowing all of his or her business outside of work. People have a right to private lives....but then again, they don't have to post all of their business on fb either. I don't post anything on fb that I wouldn't want everyone to know...people can be a bit daft when it comes to what they put on the internet.

[ConcinusMan]

Do employers actually use those internet background checks? Even if an employer could eliminate my aliases, they would still think that I move to a different state every year and that my mother's stupid bad credit is mine...Even if you look at the person who they have listed as me...they have so much information incorrect!

Yeah, unfortunately they do. Not once have I seen a result that was correct. Every single time I've had my background checked by an employer, there were charges dropped that were listed as convictions, and even charges that stuck, that were completely missing from the record they received.

The one and only time that my record was complete and correct, is when it was checked by the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, after I was already employed by them. Private employers do not have access to this kind of check because it was done using fingerprints, not name/date of birth. Private employers must rely on those internet backround check websites which are extremely unreliable.

I was part of a class action lawsuit against a certain background check company used by an employer that denied me employment. They lost the lawsuit, and had to pay out 6 million bucks. My share of it was $54

I don't think it should even be legal for them to check your credit and background if you are not going to be hired in a sensitive position, especially given the unreliability of the info they find.

[chris-uk]

I've just had to allow my employers to do a Criminal Record Bureau check on me to keep some of our customers happy... if they find anything I've signed to say that they can fire me.
OK, so I have access to a lot of data owned by our customers, including data about children and vulnerable adults (amongst a lot of other data), so a background check is justified. The thing is that the CRB checks that they run in the UK are not a lot of use - they only return convictions (so if I was any good at breaking the law I wouldn't have been caught), they need to be done for each employer/organisation (so I had one done last summer so that I could coach kids for my hockey club) so you end up having to go through the forms more several times, and their accuracy is questionable even when you supply good addresses to check against. The whole CRB system was a knee-jerk reaction to some child murders, and the system has proven fallable between then and now, how many crimes has it prevented? Who knows, but I don't expect it's a huge number.

[ConcinusMan]

That U.S. Govt. check they did on me was so thorough and accurate that it even listed every time I was arrested, even if I wasn't convicted or charged with anything. Yes, there's been multiple instances where I was arrested but not charged or even jailed. I know, doesn't make sense, but there was a reason for that. Those instances were even listed. I was suprised.

But that kind of check uses fingerprints, was done by the Govt. and it took weeks. Private employers don't do that. I've had those private checks, which take just minutes, list convictions on my name, that didn't happen, and also had them leave out convictions that did happen. Ridiculous.

Another problem is that employers consider Burglary a theft-related conviction. That is just not necessarily the case. Burglary does not imply or even require a theft to have taken place in order to be convicted of it. I racked up one just by unintentionally breaking a window with my fist when I was drunk. Because my hand entered the building, it was burglary. Duh. In all actuality, it was misdemeanor property damage. That one little detail (hand went inside the window, where they found my blood) makes it burglary. I plead guilty to Attempted burg in exchange for the minimum sentence. Employers just see the conviction. They don't get to see what actually happened, or the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Because of this incident, they see me as a thief. Ridiculous. No theft, or attempt at theft took place.

The funny thing is, even with all the details of every time I've been arrested, convicted or not, the Govt. still hired me. A private employer wouldn't have, even in the same kind of job.

[chris-uk]

It's all about the interpretation of the checks. Crazy that the government consider you trustworthy and private employers wouldn't have... I hope the government job will serve as a watershed and that future employers see it as a sign that their checks as useless.
A CRB check here basically just gives an employer (or youth group, school etc where you volunteer) a yes/no as to whether you have existing convictions. Not a lot of use really.
If you're looking at sensitive government jobs they do proper background checks, all the way up to any politcal groups you might have belonged to. I don't know a case personally where it's happened, but in principle belonging to an extreme political group at university could be enough to deny you a sensitive post. Of course, the sort of posts that require that level of clearance are Ministry of Defence or GCHQ type jobs (so equivilant of working in the CIA). I know at one point when my dad was in the Royal Navy he had some background checks that included checks on family members before he was posted to work on encrypted trans-Atlantic comms.

[chris-uk]

It's all about the interpretation of the checks. Crazy that the government consider you trustworthy and private employers wouldn't have... I hope the government job will serve as a watershed and that future employers see it as a sign that their checks as useless.
A CRB check here basically just gives an employer (or youth group, school etc where you volunteer) a yes/no as to whether you have existing convictions. Not a lot of use really.
If you're looking at sensitive government jobs they do proper background checks, all the way up to any politcal groups you might have belonged to. I don't know a case personally where it's happened, but in principle belonging to an extreme political group at university could be enough to deny you a sensitive post. Of course, the sort of posts that require that level of clearance are Ministry of Defence or GCHQ type jobs (so equivilant of working in the CIA). I know at one point when my dad was in the Royal Navy he had some background checks that included checks on family members before he was posted to work on encrypted trans-Atlantic comms.