To ask if this is/shoud be standard recruitment practise

[InsomniacVampire]

Came across this as a recommended article and don't know what to think

schoolsweek.co.uk/teaching-hopefuls-asked-for-details-of-any-website-youre-named-on/

To sum up if you dont want to click, some schools ask prospective candidates to give up their social media handles (as well as sites they are mentioned on) info and do background search on candidates.

"An application form for Chesham Grammar School, in Buckinghamshire, asks teacher candidates to provide account names and handles for “all of your” social media accounts, including any under a nickname or pseudonym."

On the one thing, obviously recruiting a teacher who has a twitter account praising racism/homophobia/revealing them to be an Andrew Tate wannabe etc would not be great, I can't see it as anything other than another invasion into private life (also knowing teachers among other few professions seem to be held to higher standards than many other professions).

What are people experiences with this? Is it something already going on a lot outside teaching? Would you/Did you hand over your social media information to a prospective employer?

I have an incredibly silly blog I write for with a friend, a super locked personal FB I don't use my real name for and and two IG accounts, one where I put photos from travels and one of a hobby I do- none having my name/face/person on it. While admittedly I would not like anyone irl to ever read the blog as I would die of shame (super guilty pleasure stupid stuff), I would actually not like an employer to have access to any of the above even if they are harmless and there is nothing dodgy on them- they dont need to what I do in my free time. I'm a teacher, not an Mi5 agent.

When I was a teacher, my first school asked this on my application. As far as I know, they didn’t do anything about it and it was never mentioned at any point. Although, I did discover from it that the university I did my PGCE with had set up a Twitter profile on my behalf using my university email address and been tweeting about how great the course is supposedly from me - they were tweeting the exact same tweets for my entire cohort!

It's not just teachers, and if schools have only just started asking for this info, then it's about time they did!

That's ridiculous and an invasion of privacy. Everyone writes things online that they do so under the assumption it's anonymous.

If you are dodgy, you're not going to admit going onto sites that reflect that part of your personality either.

But WHY should it be a standart practise for a firefighter, banker or a whoever else really to show their IG blogging about memes, posting family photos or liking shirtless photos of fav actors. Does it have any bearing on you being a professional?

I don’t like it. I do think it’s fair for recruiters to run a search on your name to see what could easily be found by students, clients, etc. Online activity should only be of interest to your employer if it can be traced back to them in some way.

I find it unreasonable they'd expect everything handed over.

They can search for your name on social media and see what comes up.

They've got no more business demanding to see your holiday snaps, or wanting to be told that you went to a bar last Friday, or that you like supporting the RSPCA,nor anything else someone might post on social media.

Do you really think people are going to answer this honestly if there is something to hide?

Far better for the law to require verification that allows you to be prosecuted, or just simply banned. Or even for the proposal from about 30 Tory backbenchers to make social media providers' directors personally criminally liable for not protecting children and possibly jailed to become law.

Imagine if they asked for MN usernames as well.

Anything's that's out there in my real name is "fair game" and easily fair game.

The websites and communities I'm members of, using a pseudonym, are my safe spaces to be myself.

It's not an invasion of privacy.. It's an invasion of publically available information that secondary school students will find before the end of your first day at school and use it as a weapon if it is incriminating. Post nothing on line you wouldn't want your boss to see.

Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) was updated Sept 2022 to recommend that schools should do an online search of all shortlisted candidates. Schools that are doing this need to let candidates know. Not all schools are going as far as searching social media accounts in my experience. Of course, anyone posting anything inappropriate is likely to then delete such accounts.

It makes sense for identifiable posts - incidentally DD was encouraged to set up a professional Twitter by her Uni during her Teaching degree.

Less so for pseudonyms.

This was new in Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE), the key safeguarding document from government, for this September.

What it says is "as part of the shortlisting process schools and colleges should consider carrying out an online search as part of their due diligence on the shortlisted candidates. This may help identify any incidents or issues that have happened, and are publicly available online, which the school or college might want to explore with the applicant at interview”

So there's plenty of room for interpretation, but advice from our HR advisors is that it says "should" not must, schools must be careful to avoid discrimination as a result of what they may find and that the recruitment policy and invitation to interview must be clear on kinds of searches that will be undertaken. There's certainly no requirement for people to hand over login details.

Surely anything they are worried children or parents might find they can find themselves. Asking for pseudonyms is definitely OTT and an invasion of privacy but surely applicants just don't give them.

I've been a TA in a few schools and have never had to do this. I've heard of potential police officers having to though.

I wouldn't give them mine if they asked and would sooner delete my social media than share them. Not because I have anything dodgy on there, but just a bit embarrassing

Read the teacher standards. Part 2. Professional conduct outside of the classroom.

You'd be surprised how many teachers have open social media profiles and post all sorts of shit. I do know one who was disciplined for publishing her own thoughts online, publically, and was stunned that someone had brought it to the head's attention.

The kids will look you up. Their parents will look you up. It's excellent practice for recruiters to look potential new teaching staff up online. Not too sure about asking for social media 'handles' though, I've got stealth mode on everything, there's no way you can find me unless I add you.

I have a common name, there is a a lot of stuff going on for the White Fire's of the world.

But WHY should it be a standart practise for a firefighter, banker or a whoever else really to show their IG blogging about memes, posting family photos or liking shirtless photos of fav actors. Does it have any bearing on you being a professional?

Like any law, it's not there for the majority of people who don't do bad things.
The law making murder illegal isn't there for me because I wouldn't murder someone, with our without that law.

It's to protect a business/school from the minority of people who could cause then reputational damage by posting something inappropriate.

I think you are missing a point.
I think if you post illegal stuff, this is obviously wrong.
But I also think I or anyone else should be able to post stuff we dont want people irl to see without them knowing. If there is nothing linking my hobby to my name/public persona, why should I be handing it over to employer?

It's more a principle. I have a good doctor. I would care if it turned out he was a child abuser, but I would not care if he was writing his own version of 50 Shades of Grey and promoting it on his social media under a pseudonym (or even his real name for that matter).

lso, funnily enough, why is there such an emphasis on teachers having to be bulletproof, rather than an onus on students being taught it is wrong to spy on and misuse information on schoool stuff?

Nope. But I think all teachers should have private accounts and probably amend their public names so they can’t be easily found (lots of my teacher friends don’t have their last names on their Facebook accounts)

@Can2022getanyworse I read the teacher standards, but still can't see a link between my professionalism and me writing spicy stories or posting photos of trainers under a social media handle no one can connect to me.

Jury is still out for me for people being sacked because of OF accounts, but anonymous social handles or private locked FB/IG accounts are just something I can't understand why we would have to share.

There are many people out there who don't realise their posts are public and searchable so I'm all for giving guidance on locking down accounts so that parents and students can't find them. I think it's going too far to ask anyone to surrender their accounts. If I were applying I would include my accounts but make them all private before anyone could look (if they weren't already)

I just don't think we should make thinkgs like non personal stuff super private- neither that they are relevant to most jobs?
I know of someone who was a beauty vlogger ages ago (and a good, one , she bought and did honest reviews) and felt pressurised into deleting the channel when she went into an office job as her manager though it did not look 'serious' enough, and it made me a bit sad you can't do stuff for fun, ebcause other people find it an issue.

Well put.

Its been standard practice in recruitment for many years.

My friends in recruitment say social media is the biggest single reason people dont make a short list- photos of drunk nights out on face book being a very common reason to get your application binned