Help Wanted: Only Those without a Life May Apply

From a letter to the editor in today's Star Tribune:

Tracking Tweets
It is an invasion of applicants' privacy

I find it curious that in a job interview it is illegal to ask a candidate about their marital status, health issues, politics, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and other personal details, yet it's OK to mine Facebook and Twitter sites for such information (see the Star Tribune story referred to here). Kind of Orwellian in today's job market.

Dan Nordley, Minneapolis

In some ways, I don't have too much of a problem with a potential employer checking out a candidate's Twitter feed, since that is completely public.

But to somehow get a look at a person's Facebook page, which is definitely created with an expectation of privacy, is clearly invasive and highly inappropriate.