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I’ve written before about being careful about what your social media profile might say to potential employers. The City of Bozeman, Montana took its vetting process a step further by asking applicants for municipal jobs to provide all login and password information for social networking and blog sites.

After much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands in the local and Internet communities, the city re-thought and suspended its policy.

The city instituted the policy to ensure it was adequately vetting candidates.

I think people’s social media sites are clearly relevant to anyone having a relationship with the person (employment, business partner, vendor, babysitter, student….).

While I think almost everyone agrees Bozeman took it too far, what is appropriate information to ask for? Should business partners, employers or schools be limited to what they can search online by the candidate’s name? Can they ask for your user names? What about a list of sites where you are active? Should there be a different standard for a clerk and a police officer, teacher or garbage collector?

Tags: Bozeman, employment, Facebook, Montana, MySpace, networking, privacy, social media, Yahoo

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Blogging, employment law, small business, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.