Good News for Jobseekers: German Law Will Limit Employer Use of Facebook to Vet Job Candidates
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Over 70 percent of hiring managers and HR professionals routinely use Google to find out more about prospective job candidates. While many jobseekers know this and do everything possible to expunge deleterious and compromising information from a Google search on their names, some don’t know that Facebook profiles are a routine target of all Google searches. Consequently, hiring managers may have access to some personal information (including photos) that may jeopardize a job candidate’s prospects.
Today, German government officials proposed a new law that would place restrictions on employers who want to use Facebook profiles to recruit and vet job candidates. The bill would allow hiring managers to search for publicly accessible information about prospective employees on the Web and to view pages on job networking sites like LinkedIn, BioCrowd and Xing. But it would not allow employers to access or use information about job candidates on purely social networks like Facebook. The proposed law would also prohibit companies from secretly videotaping employees except in certain areas as long as they disclosed the fact.
The idea of crafting legislation to limit company access to personal information of job candidates found on social networks like Facebook, Ning and others reveals the underlying paradox of the social media phenomenon. That is that people publicly, voluntarily and willingly offer private and intimate information about themselves as part of their right to freedom of expression and then that information can be used against them! In other words, the transparency and inherent freedom of expression offered by social media can in reality hinder, restrict or inhibit the professional and social opportunities of those who use it. I highly doubt that legislation similar to the proposed German law would ever see the light of day in the US.
For now, I highly recommend that jobseekers continue to routinely Google themselves to see what information is “out there” about them. Also, continue to limit access to personal profiles on Facebook and any other “purely social” online networking sites that you may belong too. Both activities will help to insure that the photo of you in a compromising position or with a beer bong in your hand won’t eliminate you as a prospective job candidate.
Until next time....
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!
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Amber Johnson at 
Yesterday, I gave a lecture entitled “Alternate Careers: Taking the Road Less Traveled” to over 100 members of the University of Pennsylvania’s Biomedical Graduate Student Association. As always, there were many good questions and comments during and after the presentation. Some of the career anecdotes offered by several of the students reminded me of a conversation that I had several weeks ago with one of my Fundamentals of Bioscience students—I teach a Product Development and Regulatory Affairs course in the program—who refreshed my memory about a typical graduate student approach to career development and job searching. “We don’t think about jobs or our careers until we begin writing our PhD theses” she said. “Until then, our advisers don’t talk about careers or jobs and only bring it up because our funding will run out” she added. Admittedly, I had forgotten this because so many years have passed since my graduate student days. That said, it forced me to consider how much the life sciences job market has changed since I was graduate student and how vitally important it is for today’s graduate students to think about and possibly explore different career options throughout the course of their graduate training.
Using Facebook and Twitter to find jobs is becoming routine in many industries including healthcare. However, the life sciences industry is lagging behind most others when it comes to social media and recruitment. Nevertheless, many companies and academic institutions are beginning to realize that Facebook (FB), Twitter and other science social networks are good source of qualified candidates for those difficult-to fill job openings. 
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but according to a recent survey of 3,000 job seekers conducted by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas the time it takes to find a job is growing longer. For example, the median time for job searches conducted by those winning positions grew from 3.6 months in the second quarter to 4.4 months in the third quarter of 2008. Also, it found that 13.4% of job seekers relocated to take new positions in the third quarter of 2008. While this is up from a first quarter figure of 8.9%, it is still lower than the percentage of job seekers (15%-16%) who relocated in 2006 and part of 2007. 
