Issue date: 6/28/06 Section: Opinion

Ivan Flores - The Battalion

Even with an Aggie ring, finding and keeping a good job can be difficult. Now, another challenge has emerged. Employers have increasingly begun to use Web sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com to screen applicants and current employees.

"People post pictures of me at parties," said David Ball, a senior geology major. "If I feel they are inappropriate, I delete them. But I think if an individual drinks adult beverages, employers should not use it against them,"

The information available on these Web sites is of a personal or artistic nature and is not the type of information that should be considered in determining employment. Unfortunately for Ball and the rest of Facebook users, the Web site collegerecruiter.com reports that as much as 5 percent of employers screen potential employees in this way.

To understand why employers should not be using information gathered on these types of Web sites, all one has to do is imagine a hypothetical situation in which an employer would actually ask his employees for the type of information one can find on MySpace or Facebook. Imagine an interviewer asking to see the photo albums of job applicants. Imagine an employer wanting to know what an employee's favorite book is, or movie, or favorite quote. Imagine an employer asking what you consider your body type to be, or if you want to have children. The thought that this kind of information is important to how someone will do his or her job is laughable.

There are, however, more serious questions about which employers could seek answers. Employers could easily use Facebook or MySpace to determine an applicant's race. Also, almost everyone on these Web sites includes information about their sexual orientation and employers could potentially find information about past relationships applicants have had. Is that what employers want to learn about? Religious information is also often included. A lawsuit would likely follow an interview in which an employer asked about an applicant's race, religion, sexual orientation or past sexual partners. Yet, employers can get all this information at their discretion by researching an applicant or employee on Facebook or MySpace.

It is arguable that it's not an employer's intent to seek private or personal information by screening applicants or employees using these Web sites, but since almost no one posts information dealing with job skills or work history, it is hard to imagine what else an employer could be hoping to find.

People use Facebook and MySpace for many different reasons - dating, networking with old classmates and friends. Celesta Danger and Tamara Hoover used flickr.com to post art. They are both artists and anyone who visits their pages on MySpace or flickr would instantly know that. But beyond their artistic disposition, one could tell that they have non-traditional values, and Danger in particular, is not afraid to take bold and compelling pictures. The Austin High School administration took great offence to these pictures and it cost Tamara Hoover her job as an art teacher.

The problem, however, is not that the pictures were in poor taste, rather that the forum in which the pictures were posted was being used in an entirely inappropriate and incorrect way by the Austin High School administration. When employers use a forum for artistic expression and personal networking as a tool to screen employees, disasters like this one are bound to happen.

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