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job hunting and personal information
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Date: Sun, 13 Oct 96 16:43:36 EST
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator
Computer Privacy Digest Sun, 13 Oct 96 Volume 9 : Issue: 025
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Date: 08 Oct 1996 19:50:49 -0700 From: haggis@ix.netcom.com Subject: Job Hunting Fallout
It has been a long time since I looked for a job. Things have changed. An experience I had today was especially interesting. I went to a HR office after being told that I could not mail in a resume. Everybody had to come in person and fill out an application. Given that the types of jobs the organization has are highly paid, white collar positions, not the types of jobs that you traditionally fill out apps for, I was surprised.
I decided to fill out the application while I was there. I was told I had to fill every blank or it would be thrown away. It was very lengthy, and most people were picking it up and leaving.
I was alone in a cubicle working on it, and I noticed that it had many illegal questions. When I began job hunting, I bought a book that has up to date information about what can and can not be asked. It
This app, for example, asked the year you graduated from high school. It wanted dates and addresses on everything. It asked your marital status and your spouse's name. The permission you signed was unusual in that it was the most broad I had ever seen. It included a release for everything imaginable, including medical information. You were pretty much signing your life away.
Then, I chanced to overhear pieces of a training session for a new receptionist. As people came in to pick up apps, their conversation ceased. Then when the office was clear, they would begin again.
What I could gather is this: the info from the app is entered on the computer. Then some hyper-snoop capability goes into effect and goes out into databaseland to check all the data....your driver's license record, apparently, the motor vehicle info, whatever else is available about you and pulls it in and puts it in your electronic file, which is then printed out and passed on to a selection committee.
I wonder if they are using one of the tell-all services the lawyers have had for several years, the one that tells how much your house cost and who your neighbors are and what they paid for their homes.
I'm sure the argument for this would be that a machine, not a person does all the checking, and thus it is less time consuming and less costly.
Please don't write to me privately and ask me to tell you the name of the company because I won't. It was a high tech organization, one that would be expected to be on the cutting edge in terms of electronic information.
If they are feeding back (to their vendor) what you have told them on that app by entering it into the computer, then there is your life history, what salaries you made on what jobs (the IRS might like that) for the last ten years, your personal and business refs. The more I think about it, the more uneasy it makes me.
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Haggis@ix.netcom.com
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End of Computer Privacy Digest V9 #025
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