I read every article that mentions the word “statistician”, and here is one that I found today:
When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password. Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn’t see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.
My interest in statisticians has to do with my husband being one. When he was on the job market, I had a chance to discover how much bullying there is in his industry*. I have written before about the practice of forcing people with PhDs in Financial Statistics to solve some completely idiotic puzzles during interviews. N. initially tried to prepare for such questions by poring over collections of puzzles but then realized that his self-respect was of more value to him than any job and decided to terminate any interview where he would be asked to engage in such a stupid exercise.
Justin Bassett also terminated the interview when he was asked to offer the interviewer access to his profile. I congratulate him on this decision because working for a company that hires unhinged, psychologically unstable idiots like this interviewer is a place with no future. There cannot be any practical, job-related value in seeing anybody’s Facebook profile, which means that anyone who insists on access is a pervert desperate to rummage in other people’s lives for lack of their own.
* I’m not talking about other industries in this context because I have no information. In academia, nothing like this is remotely possible. The search committee that hired me, for example, was legally barred even from simply Googling my name.
Clarissa's Blog 
What about people, who can’t afford to lose the job, but don’t have a Facebook? Will they not be hired because the employer thinks they’re lying? Should one of requirements to get a job to be: 1. create a fake FB and make relatives friend you so that your boss’ll think you have friends and are a “normal” pperson. (Introverts will find it much harder to look good in this situation). Ah, and 2. don’t forget to update regularly too, less your boss starts thinking it’s because of him and gets hurt and suspicious (may be you have another, “real” FB profile, where you vent of him butting into your life?). Talk about Big Brother watching you. 😦
With bosses asking to be “friended” and companies like this, I am happy not to have a Facebook (or any other site) under my RL name.
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I think that people without a Facebook will not face this particular issue. Still, bullying during job interviews can be something they encounter in other ways.
” Should one of requirements to get a job to be: 1. create a fake FB and make relatives friend you so that your boss’ll think you have friends and are a “normal” pperson.”
– This is obviously not why interviewers are asking for access to FB profiles. An employee with no friends and no social life is the best employee because s/he will waste no time on anything other than the job. 🙂 🙂
“With bosses asking to be “friended” and companies like this, I am happy not to have a Facebook (or any other site) under my RL name.”
– I don’t have an FB either but if an interviewer told me “Oh, I’m just looking you up on FB right now”, I’d just get up and leave. This is an unhinged person who might be bringing a bazooka to work tomorrow, so who needs all that aggravation?
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There is no job needed so desperately that you should be willing to work for someone who thinks you’re a liar right off the bat. I may be the only person in the US of A who does not have a Facebook profile. I don’t belong to Facebook. If someone links to a Facebook page that is only open to someone with a Facebook login, I cannot read that page. I am willing to bear that burden. I am also willing to bear the burden of looking for a job where the people who run it aren’t the type to think interviewees who tell them “I don’t have a Facebook profile” are lying. I would rather starve in a ditch (though actually, there is plenty of assistance for people who can’t find jobs so they won’t have to starve in a ditch).
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I keep having this nagging feeling that the twisted spinster is me. Is it possible that I have a split personality or something? 🙂
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I am you and you are me and we are all together! 😈
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I don’t have a Facebook page and I know more than twenty people who
don’t have it either.
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For virtually all websites, the conditions of use include a requirement to keep passwords confidential, so the employer in question is demanding breach of contract. Perhaps it’s a test to see who’s willing to do their dirty work. Employability is at least as much about what you’re willing to do as what you’re able to do.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m convinced that what companies want to communicate through intrusive and evasive HR practices is “workers need companies more than companies need workers.”
Welcome to capitalism.
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“Welcome to capitalism.”
– Do you want me to tell you how employees’ morality was policed in the Soviet Union? 🙂 Any capitalist shark can take a break compared to that. 🙂
I can also share what happened to the Soviet people who had the misfortune to be fired. How do you think the 0% unemployment rate was maintained?
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What did happen to those who were fired?
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Proper answer for the Facebook request:
I will consider your request when you have gathered original copies of privacy releases from the “friends” and from any others who may have been seen in a photo on my private Facebook page. I also require you to obtain from Facebook’s general counsel a specifically worded consent for you to access my private Facebook page via password. The action of giving a password to some person other than the registered user is considered a violation of terms of service, and may be illegal. Furthermore, I suspect that you would like to prevent your company from being banned or sued by Facebook. Lawyers in most civil suits take a scattershot method of naming defendents, and any sloppiness on your part in obtaining all consents from “friends” and any people present in photos on the private site may expose you to lawsuits fron these individuals, and possibly lawsuits by Facebook corporate defendant in any countersuit. Needless to say, I would be a target of all lawsuits as well, but generally plaintiffs’ lawyers pursue corporate deep pockets, and individuals with relatively few assets are assigned minimal responsibility.
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This is absolutely brilliant. Thank you, Nancy P!
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BTW, I don’t have a Facebook page.
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“What did happen to those who were fired?”
– Being unemployed was a crime in the USSR that was punished with a prison sentence. Homelessness was, too.
So, of course, people put up with anything to stay in the government-assigned jobs. 😦
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