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SuperCharlie writes:
"I am in search of employment and ran across a bit of a dilemma that I would like some Soylent guidance. After applying for a job at CareerBuilder, I received a follow-up email which requested that I fill out their on-line application. The first field, mandatory, was Social Security Number as part of their initial screening process. My question for the community is, how would you deal with requests like this as the initial employment steps?"
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Employment Applications and Your Personal Info
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:20PM
They probably will need it just to check your references.
After all, any large company might have a many "Bob Jones" working for them, and if they want to check your references, they will have to supply an SSN to the prior employers.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:34PM
Perhaps a database primary key? All of the jobs on that site in my area are McJobs so if you sign up on that site 6 times in one year, they don't want to send you to interview at the same car rental desk clerk position or MLM salesperson opportunity or custodial service mop holder job five more times after they reject you the first time. That could get awkward after the 3rd or 4th interview for the same McJob.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:59PM
Then they should just assign a primary key or track unique identities in some other way.
Using it for those purposes is not just beyond full-retard, it's plain freakin' dangerous. You already have personal info that you need to protect, and at least one state that I know of, will pursue you for damages and fines if you release personal info.
I would do what I normally do, which is to forge and lie. I know they don't need it, and whatever they do want it for, is not in my best interests.
A credit report should NEVER be part of a background search. My own buddy in government was being threatened simply due to bad marks on his credit report. Some complete douchenozzle in the government actually said if the debt wasn't settled it could mean he was under duress and might be a security risk. I helped write a letter in which I bent that idiot over and gutted him. I brought up the fact that it wasn't his responsibility, and it was in fact, his actions that were creating duress. Unfairly as well, since his stance instantly assumed the creditors were correct. One was fraudulent from Sprint (they are extremely well known for fraud), an other was in dispute, and the last was a scum-sucking debt collector company that refused to take any kind of reasonable deal that was within my buddy's finances.
Anybody that looks at credit reports and creates adverse opinions is helping to violate due process and do the work of the creditors. It's incredibly unfair, and is a poor substitute for a court of law to determine the worthiness of a debt.
Social media passwords just serve to destroy social media. It's not like you will be yourself, if you know that you would be judged to the extent it affects your income. Thankfully, that is being taken care of.
I would never submit to my social being used in an interview process, and while people need jobs, you don't want to work for an employer that would utilize such faulty logic . Nothing about that job will be fair or impartial, you will not be cared for, and just find yourself in a very toxic corporate environment where the shit-head execs (always that way) possess the kind of thinking that allows for such things in the first place. You will find many problems.
It's just not worth it. Tell them that the social will be provided the moment employment is provided. Not a moment sooner.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday March 02 2014, @07:19PM
Also, in some states it may be illegal [consumersunion.org]. Employers collect SSNs for tax purposes when they decide to hire somebody, but there are significant restrictions on when and how they can ask for it.
Your guess that it's probably for a credit check sound right on the money. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Steve Cohen (D-TN 9) introduced a bill [govtrack.us] to make that illegal too, but it between partisan gridlock and big business opposition there's approximately a whelk's chance in a supernova of that passing.
My instincts match edIII though: If they're that stupid, or that disrespectful towards their applicants, try elsewhere if at all possible.
Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Yow on Sunday March 02 2014, @09:54PM
In my state Government job-sites warn against including your ssn on apps/resumes as it is indeed illegal. My plan would be to fill out the on-line app out w/out my ssn and in some other space notate 'ssn provided upon hire' or some such - not that following my advice aver got anyone anywhere - but I've done Ok.
(Score: 1) by fliptop on Sunday March 02 2014, @09:20PM
If you are applying for any kind of job that handles money, especially at a bank or credit union, a credit report is necessary.
If you have second thoughts about booking a trip to an Indian casino, is it a reservation reservation reservation?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday March 02 2014, @10:49PM
Why?
For what reason, and what do we learn from a credit report?
If it's duress you are worried about, that is incredibly unfair for the exact same reasons that you would look. Looking for it creates the problem.
That could be mitigated by simply asking about the debts and what went wrong in an impartial way that you don't take the creditors or the applicant's side. Even then, what do you hope to learn? The applicant was stupid? The applicant was unlucky? The applicant shouldn't have banged the waitress and got divorced?
There is a faulty premise at work here. The applicant is so emotionally involved in the satisfaction of the debt that they would perform an illegal action to receive unjust enrichment that allows them to satisfy the debt.
It's so laughable as a premise. You don't know how sociopathic a person may be because they were simply retarded or drunk when they bought that hot tub. We've ALL BOUGHT THE HOT TUB. Mine was a 5k impulse purchase on credit a decade ago, that to this day, leaves me in a state of awe as to what I was thinking.
The possibility that they may do something wrong because of a debt, even a bad one, is just as equal as the possibility that they wouldn't. Furthermore, it's usually the large and very emotional debts that are concerning. Like home mortgages. Everybody has those, so everybody has the stress equally, so you learn nothing. You just lost the Who's-A-Sociopath game.
Medical burdens are next. You don't need a credit report for that, and you don't learn that the applicant has a niece with some horrible disease and applicant could really use 50k just laying around in the vault.
For actually assessing real risk, a credit report is just useless.
What a credit report is useful at though, is very subjective judgments of a person. You get an idea of their culture, their history, their business decisions. However, all of those ideas can be based on stereotypes and other forms of bias. Once you have that, people will act normally, and judge the applicant hastily according to their life experiences and biases, and that would rarely be fair to applicant.
An employer has no business with a credit report, even if you do work in a bank. There is nothing in a credit report that would logically convince me that a person was more than a risk than any other person.
As for highly sensitive jobs, it is still worthless. From a credit report you don't know how in love he is with that stripper that ends up breaking down one day and promising the applicant that if we was rich they could run away and hump like rabbits on the beach. You only know that with a deep background check, psych testing, etc. All things far more invasive and effective than a credit report.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fliptop on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:45PM
I guess the HR people at my bank see it differently. You can't get a job there unless you have good credit. Now that I think about it, it's the same way at the casino near me too.
If you have second thoughts about booking a trip to an Indian casino, is it a reservation reservation reservation?