Facebook and getting hired (How do they see my profile?)

[Fudgie]

I'm a little confused here.

 

Okay, so my school paper ran an article about a recent grad who was going to go into this awesome job. Apparently, he was given the job but the offer was taken back soon after they did an online background check (which he consented to) and they apparently found some risque stuff on his Facebook.

 

Now, I'm not really worried about my Facebook (Aside from the occasional obsenity, you won't see anything sexual, flirty, alcohol-y, or even that social) but I am concerned - how do employers see your profile?

 

I'm a privacy nut. I know how to use the FB privacy controls and I utilize them. Everything is set to "friends only" - no exceptions! It doesn't matter if you're in my network or if you're "friend of a friend"...if you're not friends with me, you can't see anything. You can only see my name, my profile pic, and networks. I also don't have that many friends because I only add people who are genuinely my friends, not random people and not even people who I don't really talk to or know.

 

So...if you have someone like me, how would employers be able to access my profile information? Does Facebook somehow let them? Or do they try to randomly add me with a fake account and see if I accept in order to see my info?

[renaissancewoman101]

I've always wondered about that.

 

I keep my FB locked down too and I don't accept everybody's friend request. I have to know you in some way before I will accept you.

[lerira]

What were that guy's privacy settings? Maybe it was more accessible compared to yours. I think you're best bet is to delete all of yours photos, posts, etc. or at least leave just the minimal. Also, remove yourself from all groups, interests, etc.

[OptomisticGirl]

Mine is locked tight - especially after my journal viasco - and unless I consider you a friend, you aren't on mine. I'm willing ot bet his privacy settings were horribel.

[abitbroken]

Also set it so you don't appear in searches. And watch what you post on fan pages, etc

[Fudgie]

Why would I delete all of my photos/posts if they are all private (as in, only real-life friends) to begin with? Are you assuming that an employer could "hack" my profile to see those private photos? Because outside of one of my friends being my employer (unlikely, lol) or them having THEIR account hacked, I don't see how this is possible.

 

I don't know the kid who this happened to. If I get his name, I'll search him on FB and see what I can find. Many students at my college are, frankly, stupid with social networks. They let everyone in their network see everything. I couldn't stand that. I keep everything private so I have to approve every person who gets to see it.

[Fudgie]

Also set it so you don't appear in searches. And watch what you post on fan pages, etc

 

Yep, that's what I do. I'm a fan of a couple products I use (Like Kindle) and mostly write help topics for other users. I don't do the group thing anymore.

[faithful14]

I think companies might be able to in some way look at your profile, although I wouldn't know how. One of my guy friends and his best friend were both applying for the Fire Department. One of them took off all the pictures of them drunk or doing something inappropriate and the other friend left his pictures on there. Both their profiles were set to private and the settings were made that only friends can view their pictures. Guess which one didn't get a job offer?

 

Just as a safety procedure, anyone looking to get a job, should make sure to get rid of any inappropriate pictures they have on facebook. I have heard of many people being declined a job due to the provocative pictures they had on facebook.

[Fudgie]

That's really interesting! I'm very intrigued now. How do they get this info?

 

I'm glad I do all of my drinking/sketchy business in private and away from the public eye and cameras.

[Furtive]

I haven't used Facebook in a long time. But they really change their settings a lot (it took me two weeks for a full deletion of my account!).

 

There used to be little tricks, and I'm sure employers know them all. I'm not sure if they're still around. For instance, you used to (maybe still can) not be able to see someone's pictures that they posted inately, but you could see the pictures if they had a tagged friend in them that had lax privacy settings. I also remember being able to rotate back and fourth from friends pages to get into albums that were 'hidden' when you went to their page naturally.

 

It's the internet though. Where there's a will there's a way. I'm no hacker, no expert, and even my dumb self was able to bi-pass a lot of things in drunken click fests. You'd be surprised.

 

I'm so glad I got off of facebook before they intertwined with everything. I guarantee you in a year or two, your presence will be so wound into different sites that it will be impossible to erase your web presence. The coming generations are going to be in for a very rude awakening. I got out just in the nick of time.

 

Moral of the story, delete FB. If not, realize everything you do -- but more importantly -- everything your friends do and post of you -- will be accessible by everyone, somehow, someway.

[Fudgie]

Nah, I'm not going to delete FB. I have nothing on FB that I am ashamed of or would not want to show the world. If future generations want to access my data in the future, they are welcome to. They are just in for a bit of a bore.

[Moontiger]

I actually was just talking to my dad about this. Some companies will simple ask potential employees to show the employer their facebook page (this is what a company my dad worked for did) other than that I'm really not sure how they could really see anything on your account if its locked up tight.

[Fudgie]

Yeah that would make sense...I wouldn't have an issue showing it to an employer.

 

I'm just concerned about how they seem to be able to hack into PRIVATE accounts without being a friend or me giving them access somehow. I find it worrying that something could be going on "behind the scenes" with Facebook. If so, who ELSE is Facebook allowing access?

[sophie274]

I really doubt the companies are hacking (private companies - for security-clearance government jobs I wouldn't be surprised at all). Some people still have loose privacy settings - you can see profile pics, or the wall, or if you're a friend of a friend you can see stuff ... If someone you know works at the company or knows someone at the company they could also just view the profile that way, as in "hey [person x] who is friends with [person y] who is friends with Fudgie, ask person y to show you Fudgie's profile" "or just, hey person y, your friend Fudgie just applied for a job, show us her facebook profile".

 

Personally I think it's just easier to not keep anything "incriminating" or unflattering at all on facebook. If you live a quiet life like me it's not that hard! I also think if you're over 21 it's fine to have pictures of yourself with alcohol, as long as they're not "frat party" pics. For example, you toasting with champagne at someone's wedding - fine. You shirtless doing a kegstand - not so much.

[mgirl]

Both their profiles were set to private and the settings were made that only friends can view their pictures. Guess which one didn't get a job offer?

 

Did the employer implicitly state that the reason he didn't get the job was because of his Facebook profile? It seems you have made an assumption based on a coincidental set of events, there is absolutely no hard evidence to support your theory!! (although i can understand why you made the assumption).

 

Fudgie, i seriously doubt whether employers can 'hack' a f/book account. I'd say some of them are savvy enough to know how to search, but if you had your profile set on 'private', and were careful about what you posted on other people's walls and on public forums, i'd say you'd be alright.

[Lonewing]

You can always change or alter you name such that it becomes hard to find your profile, even if someone searches for it. I was under a psuedoname for YEARS. Now, I just have everything locked down.

[Ariel85]

An employer isn't bothering to hack your FB. lol. If your settings are tight, then you're fine.

 

Do be aware, however, that in the coming months, that kid who owns Facebook is selling your phone number and home address to third parties, if you have it on your info page. I'm not sure if I can link it, but you can google it pretty easily.

 

My FB is locked up pretty tightly. You can't find me on a google search there, and if you're a member of FB, you would need to know my name to find me, as I'm not in any network. And if you knew my name, you'd see my profile picture, and that's it. ZERO additional info. I also don't add people I don't know, and I've really stopped adding kids I went to HS with and haven't talked to in 20 years.

 

Fudgie - I have a good friend who is a school principal, and they had an incident where one of the new and younger teachers had some pics on her MS of her drinking, kissing other girls, etc., and some parents saw it an complained, and she got fired. An employer can do a very easy background check to find out what you're up to, and most don't care what you're doing on FB. BUT, a co-worker, ex-bf, or someone else with an axe to grind might...

[Hanyou]

FB is a revolving program (not evolving, it keeps changing, security or whatnot, sometimes good, sometimes bad).

 

Perhaps employers look at your Personal references' FB page and they have photos of you that are public. Maybe you aren't tagged in the photos, but that's still you in your friends album that's public.

I remember there was a time where I could look at albums of friend's friends, even though you can't normally through a regular search. I believe the glitch was, you could look at your friend's pic on a F-of-F album, then the glitch let you look at the rest of the album (even though it's not set on Friends of Friends). (that was a while ago, when I was playing around with the settings, now I don't care).

 

Also, apps/games on FB can take your information and pictures, and you agreed to this by letting the program run, and those become public information to a certain extent.

 

Generally, just remember, FB is a computer program and like most, there are glitches, so hacking really isn't needed, when a simple algorithm isn't working at a certain time. There's no gtd that your "settings are tight". Heck, with the most current update to FB, a least 25% of my invites sent to me doesn't show up on my computer browser, by they do show up on my iphone FB app or when I get notifications on wall postings for the event.

[Fudgie]

Yeah what I did was that I would log out of my account and then try to search myself. I come up in the search results but there's just the profile pic, my school name, and nothing else. Oh, and the fact that I'm a female.

 

I also have a separate FB account with a pseudo name but nothing on it (no pic, no info, etc) and that's what I use SOLELY to test out privacy options. I'll friend it and view my account through it to see what I'm showing, I'll defriend it to see what happens etc.

 

I guess I won't worry too much. Honestly, if an employer asked a friend "hey, pull up Fudgie's FB" I would be 100% fine with them looking through my pics. It's just a concern to me that Facebook is somehow, without telling me, letting employers access my info.