Chapter 2: Applying for a Job in a Digital and Wired World

Overview

In the summer of 2002, an English theatrical newspaper, The Stage, ran an advertisement for the position of a hermit on a Staffordshire estate known as Shugborough Home. The successful applicant was expected to live in a damp cave on the estate grounds, give up bathing and shaving, and cut off all human contact. Duties were described as light: The only thing the hermit was expected to do was scare off occasional trespassers.

As it turned out, the hermit opening (once a familiar position on English estates) was merely a temporary position created to help promote England's National Heritage Week. The idea was the brainchild of artist Anna Douglas, who told applicants (and interested reporters) that the position was just a weekend gig. Nonetheless, Douglas was apparently stunned by the fact that more than one hundred people, including some from as far away as Pakistan, submitted an application to live in the cave.

Ironically, even applying for the position of hermit these days is not as anonymous as it undoubtedly once was. Each of the applications was put through a fairly intrusive and very nonhermit-like background check, similar to the background check that would be conducted if you were to apply for a position with most large American companies today. ^[1]

Most people understand and accept the fact that if they want to be hired for a particular job, they need to provide the prospective employer with a certain amount of information about themselves. After all, the employer's essential goal is to hire a well-qualified individual for that position, so you expect to provide basic background information, such as your identity, your experience, and your qualifications for the job.

What is less obvious is that hiring a well-qualified individual is only part of the employer's objective. Increasingly, employers are interested in hiring employees who will not expose the company to additional costs and liability. As a result, few employers feel that their hiring concerns are satisfied with the information that applicants themselves provide. In fact, job applications and resum s are merely a starting place for further inquiry, which can quickly turn into a highly invasive review of your personal life.

Here's how it works. Most employers, for instance, require you provide your Social Security number as part of your job application; as we'll see, the Social Security number has become a golden key that offers access to enormous amounts of personal information. Most standard job application forms also contain a release that, once signed, gives the prospective employer the right to obtain a wide variety of information about you. In some cases, the scope of the hiring investigation is mandated by federal or state law (school departments, for instance, are generally required to check all new hires for criminal records), but most employers conduct additional background investigations voluntarily, because they are strongly interested in making sure that they do not hire an employee who will increase their costs through negligence, misconduct, wrongdoing, or even bad health.

You have the right, of course, to refuse to provide your Social Security number or sign a records release, but that refusal will likely mean that you will not be considered for the job. The assumption, unfortunately, will not be that you are taking a principled stand to protect your privacy rights, but that you have something to hide. And to be fair, employers have often found the latter assumption to be correct.

^[1]One important difference, however, was that the Shugborough Home estate cave was larger than most corporate cubicles.