Ask Paul

We are about to embark on a confidential replacement search for our CTO [Chief Technical Officer]. I’m very concerned about confidentiality and would like to have a search firm not disclose our company’s name before our initial phone meetings with candidates. We would like to let the candidate know during the phone meeting who we are. Do you see any problems with this strategy?

-Chief Executive Officer, , wireless controls

Paul: I think that’s really up to you. Many of our searches are confidential replacements, but usually we are able to disclose to candidates the name of the company while we’re confirming them for their initial phone meetings. You will find that some candidates may balk on moving forward if they don’t know the name of your company before going ahead to interview. Likewise, many lighting professionals like to prepare and conduct research before a phone meeting and may not feel comfortable in moving forward to an actual interview if they don’t know the company beforehand.

Do you believe employers should be allowed to acquire their prospective employee’s Facebook password?

-Product Development Manager,, street lighting fixture manufacturer

Paul: This is a very hot question recently---you didn’t say whether this had happened to you personally. The reason I ask this is when conducting a workshop recently at Albuquerque Rescue Mission, this question came up. So far I haven’t heard anyone saying that they personally have had this experience; I’ve heard it in the context of ‘I heard that someone was applying for a job’, so I don’t know if it has actually happened. I’m not a legal expert but I don’t see why an employer couldn’t ask that, but my question would be why. I think to many prospective employees that would be very off-putting and likely to cause them to lose interest in a job. If anyone out there has actually had a prospective employer ask them for their Facebook password during the interview process, I would be very interested in hearing about it.