It also makes the company MORE vulnerable, rather than less. We have to reframe our thinking around it so its not such a major deal. If a company is doing appropriate checks theyll get your salary information from your previous job at some point (if they really want it, itll be earlier in the process rather than later). 9 comments. Having been slightly underpaid at my previous company, I have been taking courses on salary negotiation tactics. So I would let it go for now, but then the next time youre going to use her as a reference, give her a heads up that she may be getting a call and also let her know that youre keeping your former salary confidential. So if your remote workers are ever by chance going to be in the office, Id suggest maybe trying to rotate pizza/snack day for when theyre there, at least every once in a while. Take the internet out of the equation and think about behaviors. Things can appear one way without context, and another way with context. Personally I think anything on LinkedIn or other professional sites is fair game. But thats because Ive always worked in industries that really stress the importance of having a digital presence and brand. Ive even been assigned in undergrad/grad classes to create an online portfolio and a LinkedIn account and got graded on it. When so called disclosures are designed to be unreadable and often even confusing, that IS a justification. Not continuously (like, Im not going to be looking you up on LinkedIn when weve worked together for a while), but at the start, absolutely. I mean, no ones going to argue with free Grubhub or a gift card occasionally and, trust me, its really awesome that youre thinking of them but most of them have probably weighed the perks of being in the office against the perks of being remote and know that sometimes, theyll miss out on the fun stuff of being in the office. colleagues should never snoop or look up information cvs. Just because someones facebook is public (mine isnt BTW) doesnt mean you have the right to dig through 10 years of posts, or even 10 days of posts before you met them. Google tends to be a problem with this. Somebody will do it isnt even close to being the same thing as this is morally OK and not creepy. My big question has always been, if at the interviewing stage someone had found that blog post, what to do about it? Thats not to say there are no problems here it certainly sounds like she still doesnt get on with the manager and the director above her, and this workplace might not be the best fit. No, you do not. See the links below. 1. Good point about the anonymous screennames. I think she was talking about professionals. But if you tell your coworkers I googled you in case youre a sex offender. I thought you meant personally! How deeply you search also matters if youre reading someones high school live journal or all the Yelp reviews theyve ever written, youre in too deep. Social media is not privacy. I barely post anything online this isnt about me personally. Ive been upset about this since I learned about that fact, but I do want to emphasize that shes a wonderful human being and I love her. Ive been the target of bad googling. Youve been there three years, it sounds like its been a pretty bad experience, and maybe its time to think about whats next. That instantly cured me of Googling people out of idle curiosity, especially coworkers that I have to see every day. I still have no interest in any of them; maybe I am too old?). is it time to put my employee on a formal improvement plan? I might borrow this for holiday party season. I remember your story about the emery board! My point was you cant flow on people to tell you everything youd want to know about them. I think there might be more to it. But for me, a line gets crossed when you start seeking out information that was not intended for the wider public, but for a more limited segment of the public. Crossing over into peoples 15 year old MySpace profile that hasnt been updated in forever to figure out what they were like in college is creepy. If you didnt want me to see what you post, why did you post it? You look up all of them as a default? I think thats on topic if their question is what is and is not appropriatethis is definitely an example of what is NOT appropriate! Fine? Goon on you for being thoughtful, #5. But I do think its really appreciated by them. Instead of it being a negative thing, its a positive thing! I would enjoy this more. Limited information is OK i.e. Input from the loyal commenter brigade is also appreciated. They will. do I need to wear nylons to a job interview or are bare legs OK? Havent actually bothered to track them down, though.). I have a common name. The kinds of vendors that are coming in are people trying to convince us to switch to using their gizmos on our machines (motors, gears, buttons, switches, etc.) You could argue that its illogical of them, but I assume you dont want to make your coworkers uncomfortable, so even if you are totally okay with looking up the last ten years of someones social media presence, probably best to keep that under wraps. PVR I so agree with you. So even though my gut instinct to the title is boy is that weird its what I do if the thing Im curious about is in the arts. If this person walked up while you searching them, would you minimize the browser to hide it? Ive seen it too many times- the hiring manager will say Oh, theyre not working, so they should be happy to accept $10k below what they were making because theyre desperate. Its an awful practice and shame on their HR/Compensation partners who dont pushback and tell them its unacceptable. A lot of this stuff people do put out there themselves. I still have no idea what it was referencing! So maybe the company can do something like that also. Googling someone and looking at 2 or 3 results doesnt mean that youre memorizing every facet of their lives, nor does it mean that you refuse to actually *speak to* them. I think in most cases, people working remotely just end up giving up perks like office pizza in exchange for not having to be on site. Too damn bad. Ohhh thats true too. I think the right thing to do is pretty obvious in most situations, including how much info-gathering on others is appropriate, its just that so many people dont care that theyre crossing a line, or feel fully justified in their own minds for doing so. Similarly, if youre starting a business and file for a sole proprietorship, LLC or other type of corporation, you have to post your name and the name of the business in the local newspaper. Why would a hiring mgr want a new employee to be underpaid? Its funny but the swag capital of the world, the medical field has become anti swag, because of all the major scandals about drug reps bribing doctors a lot of areas no longer even permit pens and pencils, so asking is always good. Suggestion: dont do anything youd categorize as snooping. Whats your motivation? Its not illegal everywhere, so it still happens, but I think its generally falling out of practice, which is good. But all of six years ago, that was before UberEats, I dont think online gift cards for places like Starbucks were that common yet (at least not in Canada), etc. Curious doesnt necessarily mean creepy, but that doesnt mean that a certain extreme level of curiosity cant veer over into creepy territory. Yes its all available and no, I guess people shouldnt be surprised that it can happen but theyre more than in the right to feel violated that it did. Also, not everyone loves what everyone else is happy about in an office anyway. I would like to see the pro- tell everyone everything about us people respond to the age issue. One instance where Ive looked people up on LinkedIn is for higher ups in the company to see previous roles, to see what a path for myself could look like. I do think, however, that references should have some idea of the positions/levels you are applying for, though I doubt that would have helped in this case. Which of the following are examples of accessing information without a business purpose? public profiles in LinkedIn. Thats not fair to them. Many times the individual did NOT post it online though. I think youre reading something into the letter that isnt actually there. Finance (including fin-tech) falls under government regulations, so employees cant accept or make gifts above a certain limit & of certain types. If you wouldnt tell them that you looked it up, then you probably shouldnt be looking it up. Im not even allowed to buy my customer a sandwich. Do you think the background check wasnt a boundary violation? First off, many people put things up in the old days before mega search engines. Go read Wireds recent article about Google. Theyre having a conversation in public where anybody can see and hear what theyre talking about. If you do a quick search of someones name and check out their LinkedIn profile, theres nothing wrong with reading it. If they google me to find out what kinds of llamas I have on my llama farm, thats over the line. Google didnt exist yet, and the search engines of the time werent very good. People are not snooping and looking up things without your permission. (It was generous; where we lived at the time in a LCOL city we had to try hard to spend it all :) ) I though that was a good balance! For example, yes, its undeniably stupid to post updates on your teenage angst on Livejournal under your real name. And while I agree that we shouldnt necessarily hold all internet behavior against people and that in the ancient internet days, yes people werent thinking about it turning into the internet of today, still Im always amazed what folks share publicly online. Ill be over here with my personal-sized pizza, you pineapple-loving weirdos. I like the idea of sending a gift card now and then. Because its there. If you make a car that can go 200 mph someone will drive that fast, if you make a sub that can dive 2 miles under water someone will be in it etc If people know that certain information is out there you should not be surprised that people are searching for it or have searched for it. If you accidentally comment about someones college trip to Bali that they posted about on Facebook 5 years ago, and if they know they never mentioned that trip to you, they will be seriously creeped out, and it will be mighty awkward working with them. But in general as a society we have deemed certain crime info to be a legitimate public interest that we should know about. When I saw a letter addressed to him I googled his name and found out he was an alleged sex offended, which was not something he was going to tell me himself. what is your opinion on the analysis of kartilya ng katipunan That worked fine. Yes. There are so many perks: I get to sleep in because I have no commute and dont have to take the time to look presentable, I can have laundry running throughout the day, I can have my background noise television shows on, etc. Besides, in my department, we usually want people who show at least a little bit of competence in social media use its part of our responsibility here and you can learn a lot about someones general social media literacy by checking their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. vocabulary. They took the time to map a route to the address and drove there. I mean, I liked that time I got a free meal from my employer when I was remote, but even then, the entire team was remote. But you cannot take your age (for example) off the internet, and I for one certainly did not PUT my age on the internet. I was on the hiring panel for a position recently and one of our top candidates was the subject of some newspaper stories that were a little concerning. Whether you work full- or part-time, we offer wide variety of benefits and well-being resources. Its not how it should be, but its how it is. Using Google is not wrong. Yuck. Keep looking, though. Thats not the same as going by a coworkers house when its part of your route or when you need to pick them up/drop them off. Theres a line there. Thats pretty judgey. Then the management devolved to the head of the law library, who seemed to see our project as some sort of attack on his authority. Verified answer. Its the nature of the internet and I dont think most people were prepared for that. But I was also clear with my kids (especially my daughters, because their risks are higher) about the dangers of various perfectly legitimate activities. Curious does not mean creepy. That was fine, thats why we were hired after all. If only we could donate all of our swag to teachers and schools that need it. Rather than jumping in and fixing something, you can help a colleague come up with their own solutions. Because nothing else really will matter professionally. She has no idea what we do and ignored us for the first three years, despite my repeated attempts to schedule meetings with her. I ended up coming into work late one day so I could drop everything and tour this house and put in an offer the very day it went on the market, so everyone at work knew more about my home-buying process than usual. (To be clear, Im not saying that posting that level of identifiable personal information online isnt stupid or that coworkers should never Google each other or whatever. Well Id be fine with someone doing this to me, so its okay for me to do it! Did she really think only people in her survivors group would find it and read it? They pop up like flies. They organize a ton of social after-hours type events for on-site employees so getting something special made me feel like I had my own alternate way to celebrate even though Im not there. You can do it, but you shouldnt really. If you wear a cow costume in public, the people there cant help but see it. You typically dont even have to go past the first page of results. Thats not a typical situation. Usenet existed decades before the World Wide Web. People didnt necessarily post it! Bad Behavior Your coworkers might just be nosy, prying into your personal life and gossiping about you when you're not around. Instead, I found out that the boss daughter had been viciously murdered by her husband, and just what they could print in the paper was complete nightmare fuel. They talked about their food blog at a staff meeting and I wanted to check it out! (this one is real for me). (Googling personal data for legitimate hiring purposes obviously falls under a different umbrella.). As for finding ways to reward remote workers, I think some sort of gift card sounds like a great compromise. My point is people are going to do it. On the line between creepy and non-creepy internet searches: personally, I think a basic search is fine. Similar we have deemed certain family law issues to have no legitimate public interest that is why family issues with minors are sealed, juvenile court records are usually sealed, and I think that most details of divorce proceedings are not public (someone correct me if I am wrong). We make safe shipping arrangements for your convenience from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In this case, our OP didnt put it out there. Its not on me, or any random person, to determine whether you intended to post something or not. Letter #1: Heres a golden rule: Does it have a purpose that I would feel okay saying to the person and/or my boss? Our govies wont even eat the free popcorn in our office. I think what makes it wrong to me is crossing the areas of interest. These are small items that almost certainly fall beneath any you cant accept/must report gifts of over $X rules your company has (although you can check that to be sure). What is an acceptable amount of internet research/snooping around on new coworkers? It does sound like you wouldnt have ended up with a fair offer anyway, given that this company offered you 25% less than you were making at a lower-level job where you were already underpaid! If youre looking someone up for a legitimate reason (e.g. If youre searching for info on their personal life, thats an overstep (and probably in no way relevant to your work with them). Ill look up clients, competitors, people in my industry. I really like my job overall and I work in a very specialized profession so I dont have many options and dont want to leave. But I do not think they are that far apart. He wasnt fired solely on the basis of it, though, he was fired because he was inappropriate with at least one coworker and was making racist (and otherwise biased) remarks. Or maybe always non-technical? This! colleagues should never snoop or look up information cvsijoy aurora speaker how to pair. (Although technically legal in themselves. But you are kind of giving a blanket I can look at anything personal statment. Technically, they dont actually even exist, according to facebook. If you search for my name plus my field, youll get my profile on my employers website, and my LinkedIn and thats about it. People do on teachers, dates, coaches..it is totally insane. Or if the boss wants to be nice ask them what they would like a slice of. Thats how people can go from checking out a few social media accounts to paid for a background search. But I think that the letter writer is asking about checking up on personal stuff, which is something I dont get. Sounds to me like the director admitted they werent really giving this area the attention it needed, and agreed with HR that the best solution would be to create this new role in between. But I am a very curious inquisitive person by nature, I consider it both my best and worst quality about me, and I think most people that know me would agree. My husband loves them on his pizza however. For #1, I think the key questions are Is it business-related? and Is it clearly intended as public knowledge?. Walking onto a train car with just one other person and every other seat empty and sitting down next to that person is creepy. If its public, you are publicly broadcasting it to where billions of people can potentially see it. I was trained as a police dispatcher and it was a criminal offense to snoop into peoples files without a specific purpose. What that LWs coworker did (gee, it would be a shame if the whole office found out you got arrested) was worse. I was on the Internet 25 years ago, and everyone understood that what you put out in the public domain was going to be there forever. All that is required to find this stuff is firstname lastname city state. Yeah, thats real. Collect all the pens, build yourself a pen and notepad fort! colleagues should never snoop or look up information cvs. Crazy how the mind works, but makes total sense. Also, yesterday there was the discussion about asking what you do for a living. Not to mention that resumes are usually written for an audience of a hiring manager rather than a direct report. I certainly agree paying for a background check or PI on someone is a lot especially if the only reason is curiosity, it goes beyond a google search of someone. In their quest to be helpful they autofill a lot of sites; now I just use several different emails for different types of sites. colleagues should never snoop or look up information cvs . Things that you would *not* feel comfortable saying? And yes, we both worked in software for the same aerospace company (different states). But thats because they need to protect themselves from predators. It used to be that you had to write to the courthouse to get the information. Another problem is when your manager has no clue what real success looks like in the role. And she took great delight in explaining that head office were not included as they always got treats, so it was their turn to miss out. If they are looking for information on my butter carving competitions, thats over the line. Its a standard part of my interview prep. I think youre a good manager for thinking of it!. if I were hiring, sure yeah. #1 I very much fall into the camp of anything more than a linkedin search is being too nosy. Its a way to undermine you and make you feel small. that would let people spend the money on food they can actually get in the area they life in. But on social media where you explicitly post things for public consumption you should not be surprised someone looked at your posts. Thats not how it works. Same. Also, (a BAD example) I used to work somewhere where the staff directory was on the internet, not intranet! And then browse around Facebook and find the names of some of them and post that too, connecting their images and names. Its interesting that food and drink are acceptable but not pens. You raise a number of valid points, but I just wanted to correct what seemed to be a misconception on that specific detail. So if you google my name and my profession, you will get info about that other person. colleagues should never snoop or look up information cvs I think the true universal is what Alison picked up on; why are you telling the person youre looking into them? But clearly in this case, it wasnt working. I would not call it the same thing as a stranger sorting through your cart at the grocery store!! Would be super common in academia, as youll have papers out ( and probably a professional Twitter feed, too, where you repost snarky things about funding, continue any feuds with rival academics, and occasionally something about your area), Also, we once found someone we were considering collaborating with had a horribly racist Twitter feed, and killed the collaboration. To put it bluntly, she lucked out when she got her job, and the opposite happened to me. I think the rule to follow here is that if youre uncomfortable talking to a colleague in person about it, you shouldnt be looking it up online. Very different than previous companies I worked in, where wining and dining potential clients (and being wined and dined by potential vendors) was par for the course. Now they are running a new background check A fine use of taxpayer dollars. I still usually use screennames that cant be easily traced back to me, and people were way more intense about it back in the aughts when we all thought posting your real name on the internet meant a crazed murderer would instantly show up outside your house. Valued people work better. I have Googled several of my coworkers, but even if I accidentally found out a coworkers address it would never cross my mind to actually drive by their house.