Not told directly but strongly inferred and in one case it was suggested that the recent grad make their profile private.

One attorney represented a candidate who was rejected because of information contained on her MySpace page. Another attorney worked for a state attorney general’s office and was representing his state’s Department of Education. They were defending a lawsuit in which they were accused of wrongful termination of a teacher who had posted controversial information to her MySpace page.

What we haven’t seen yet are any of these cases go all the way through the trial state and then to a court of appeals where a written decision gets issued. Once that happens, then you’ll see courts across the country citing the appeals court decision a precedence and more attention will be paid to the legal issues surrounding employers using social networking sites as part of their background checking processes.

It’s interesting to me that if we use publicly available information in our business decision process, it’s called due diligence. If we use publicly available information in the selection and hiring process, we’re trampling on “consumers’ rights”, exposing our companies to “unnecessary risk”, and facing mountains of litigation due to “discriminatory hiring practices” and “negligent hiring”.

Of course we could hire the young lady in the picture while possessing credible, publicly available information indicating serious behavioral problems. I can never remember if being a lush is protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Anyway, so what if she enjoys a few too many and regularly passes out on the bathroom floor. We’ll be secure in the knowledge that we have a proper, lawful hiring practice. And then when she shows up late 70% of the time, has repeated performance issues, creates dysfunctional relationships throughout the company, we’ll eventually terminate her employment for legitimate business reasons. Better send some more “lawyers, guns, and money”.