CareerBuilder has released the 2015 edition of its “Biggest Resume Blunders” Survey. You know, about that seventh bullet. I was positive that I’d changed my email address before submitting that resume to NASA. Oh well. Their loss.
Here’s the full list:
For blog fodder, but, mostly for my amusement, I have a Google Alert for “fired AND facebook OR twitter.” Usually, it’s just a hit or two. But, yesterday, I hit the jackpot. Continue reading
Late last week, Rachel Dolezal, the President of the Spokane Chapter of the NAACP and a leader in the black community, was outed by her parents as being white.
The controversy caught a lot of people by surprise, most notably, the Spokane Chapter. Amidst a flurry of activity over the weekend — just check your Facebook and Twitter feeds — Ms. Dolezal planned to address the issue at a monthly meeting tonight. However, the Spokane Chapter announced on its Facebook page that the meeting would be postponed “to continue discussion with regional and national NAACP leaders.”
Now, what if this discussion consummated in firing Ms. Dolezal? Would that be legal? Continue reading
Forcing job applicants to disclose social media logins and passwords as a condition of employment is so 2013 — kinda like this crappy blog. So, the State of Oregon is this close to becoming the first state to expand its social media workplace privacy law to forbid employers from requiring their employees or job applicants to have personal social media accounts as a condition of employment.
You can read a copy of the bill here.
So far, the bill has made it through both the House and Senate without a single “nay.” And, Mark Zuckerberg plans to buy Oregon, rename it “Gotcha, Zucka!” and secede from the Union the Governor plans to sign the bill. The new law would only impact social media accounts used exclusively for personal purposes unrelated to any business purpose of the employer or prospective employer and that is not provided by or paid for by the employer or prospective employer.
I understand the good intentions of the bill. Work is work; personal is personal and worlds don’t have to collide. But, consider two points: Continue reading
It’s funny.
(Not “ha ha!” funny. Just, employment-law blogger, wry-smile funny).
I read different surveys about social media and hiring and the numbers vary greatly. For every survey that indicates that employers are not using social media to vet candidates, you get the one I read last night from CareerBuilder.com, which reports that “fifty-two percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, up significantly from 43 percent last year and 39 percent in 2013.” Continue reading
Raise your hand if you don’t own a smartphone.
According to this Pew survey, 64% of American adults own smartphones. And that’s just the adults.
So, it should come as no surprise that, in the brief amount of time it takes someone to pull a phone of a pocket, bring it to life, pull up a camera app, and hit record — five seconds maybe — anything you (or your employees) do in public can be stored and shared. Continue reading
Over the weekend, while enjoying my tea and krumpets twenty minutes alone in the bathroom free from four screaming kids, I read this story in U.K.’s Daily Mail about a Facebook post from a fast-food chain employee. Shortly after news hit about two police officers gettign shot and killed, she wrote: ‘2 police officers was [sic] shot in hattiesburg [sic] tonight.! [sic].’ The same post include a few emoji (among them, a smiley face and a skull), followed by ‘GOT EM’ and a gun pointed at the words. In a subsequent Facebook post, the employee added, “we can turn this bxtch [sic] into Baltimore real quick.’ Continue reading
Ok. Let’s assume that I’m looking to fill another Blogprentice position here at the Bloggerdome.
[FYI – The Blogprentice’s job is to massage my scalp during those brief periods of writer’s block or when I get the vapors, rub my feet at all other times, plus whatever tasks, reasonable or unreasonable, I may assign from time to time. Job pays minimum wage. And, by that, I mean compliments. That is to say, part of the job is to compliment me. Another part is to make sure I’m using compliment correctly (instead of complement)].
All hires must then pass a background check and drug screen. Continue reading
Sure, I could have used today’s post to address yesterday’s unanimous Supreme Court decision about EEOC conciliation efforts.
But this is The Employer Handbook. It’s not like I just got the call up to the major leagues.
By now, my blog game is hella-strong, yo! I troll sites like TMZ and Deadspin for fodder. And when I see stories like Samar Kalef’s “Rockets’ Twitter Guy Fired Over Emoji Violence“, well, like a moth to a flame. Continue reading
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