What is being said about you?
I had a chat with Bronwyn Maynard of Harmers Workplace Lawyers about employers using social media sites to gather information about candidates.
Ms Maynard says recruiters or employers can only gather info about a candidate that is relevant to their business.
I told her about a manager I sat next to at a business lunch who told me he didn’t hire a woman for a receptionist role because she had “too many friends” on Facebook. He was quite upfront about his fears that had he hired the woman she would have been spending all her work time updating her profile.
Ms Maynard doubts the number of friends a candidate has on their social networking sites to be relevant business information.
She knows of some organisations that have become so concerned about the issue they have forbidden their managers using social networking sites to research candidates because it is too legally risky.
Also, the new Fair Work Act offers added candidate protections. Under its General Protections provisions, employers and recruiters cannot treat someone adversely for exercising a workplace right.
Put into the recruitment context, an example might be a person who has made an unfair dismissal claim or worker’s compensation claim in a previous job. They were exercising a workplace right in making such a claim. If this information was uncovered during a recruitment campaign, it could not then be used to discriminate against the candidate.
Big whoop, I hear you say. How will the candidate ever know what has been said about them? Well, under the Privacy Act, an employer must tell you: 1. If personal information has been collected about you; 2. its purpose; and 3. who else will see it. The Act also entitles you to apply directly to an employer or recruiter to view what has been gathered about you during the recruitment process.
You can request inaccurate information be corrected and if you deem the info irrelevant to your job candidacy, you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.
Job seeker advocate Diane Lee of the website www.evenitup.com.au has agreed to be a guinea pig and apply to see notes made about her from a previous job application. The employer in question says it will take at least three weeks so I will have to keep you posted.
I did check with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and to date, no one has made a complaint. You can also share your comments on my blog: http://blogs.news.com.au/cubefarmer/
Diane is also surveying job hunters on their job hunting experiences generally so visit her site to take part. Go to the Even it up website and click on the Jobseeker Survey link on the left.
