Chuckgregory talks about "I strongly believe that the only criterion used to evaluate job performance should be the actual execution of the duties of the job" which is a great measure ONCE you hire an employee.

However, in the recruiting stage it is really really hard to determine how a person will perform.  With that in mind, it is up to the hiring managers and human resources to gather all the information they can in order to estimate/guestimate how a person will perform the actual execution of the duties of the job.  In that regard, how can we expect these hiring managers/hr people to NOT look at freely available information on a prospective employee?

I have to object to the suggestion, "in today's society, for someone serious about his/her career, there is no separation of personal and professional lives,"

Only the qualifier "in today's society" keeps me from shouting you down on this one. Since you did include that caveat, I'm toning down my reaction at least a couple of notches.

I strongly believe that the only criterion used to evaluate job performance should be the actual execution of the duties of the job. What a person chooses to do in his or her personal life should not be relevant. What a person does on the job is always relevant. This one to me is black and white, no shades of gray here.

Today's society alrady intrudes too much on personal privacy and personal freedom. It has no place in evaluation of employees.

I think in today's society, for someone serious about his/her career, there is no separation of personal and professional lives...

By and by i've come to realize this...your career is pretty much your life. Your friends, hangouts and evertything centre around there. No wonder sometimes its difficult to walk out of a job to head to another one. Unless the conditions and pay are significantly higher. Eventually you do leave and settle elsewhere though...

But anyway on the social media aspect its still so that people will have a more relaxed persona that what they'd have at work.

slfisher, - You are right there about the fact that under normal circumstances these accounts would be privacy controlled. Meaning that if you can see into one's profile it already means they aren't too keen with some important things. Social media is a bad way to judge someone because you will see their most relaxed side which isn't necessarily an indicator of laxity with work.

In a way it makes employers want to judge potential employees over things that they themselves also do. Because everyone's got a social life that isn't perfect.

I think in today's society, for someone serious about his/her career, there is no separation of personal and professional lives, particularly when you have nearly every organization using the same cookie-cutter performance appraisals that list organizational values.  Employers hire the person, often first, and the professional skills second.

That being said, the New Jersey bill carries with it poor logic.  Beyond the strangeness of requiring someone to do a social media check, what if I didn't see something that another saw on the social media page.  In other words, what if something registered with me one way that others would conclude differently.

It would be one thing not to hire someone because of the social media check.  That probably has its own issues.

But what if I simply either missed something or wasn't savvy to some symbol or statement that someone else would argue was a giant sign that something bad would happen?  It's easy to make this claim after the fact (as evidenced by the people even pushing the bill in the first place).

Imagine the courtroom:

"Didn't you notice the person's affinity for energy drinks?"

"Sure.  I saw that he liked the Red Bull page."

"And didn't you think that, combined with his interest in extreme sports, might make him likely to become overly gregarious in a situation such as this?"

I would imagine negligence charges on employers would be the ultimate outcome of this bill if it became law, and that's probably the objective.

Steve: 

I also find it disturbing that a potential employer keeps a track of your personal statements in the form of comments or tweets. I think my personal life should be separate from my professional life. My interests, comments or tweets should not influence the hiring decision. Instead I would prefer if my experience, knowledge about the subject matter and academic accolades take precedence. 

@Chris P -- totally agree, and have been pondering the "how did we get here?" question for a few years now. Another question may very well be "how can we go back to "there" now?"

I wonder if that's possible. Do actors and actresses also get this same probe when they are cast for roles? "Oh we saw what you posted about Charlie Sheen and although he's not directly related, a venture capital company he founded is providing funds for the film so we can't cast you - sorry"

Good point about at what point do we stop peeking into a person's social media life. Can we really look into the Match.com? Does this also open the door to online purchases too? If not, why is that privacy protected then and not our comments on Facebook or tweets on Twitter? 

I haven't liked this from the start and still find it disturbing and an invasion of privacy.

Thanks as always Robert for the legal side insights too.

and okay, we'll check people's social media postings before we hire them.

At what point in the hiring process does this take place? Just before hiring, after the interview? If that's the case, then the applicant has already been to the company -- and if the person is potentially violent, do we want to tell them *then* that they're not hired and have them come shoot up the place?

At an earlier point? Then you have potentially dozens of people to examine.

Which social media accounts shall we peruse? Facebook and Twitter, ok. LinkedIn? G+? MySpace? Orkut? Match.com? How far do we go with this?

And if the person has groups set up or passwords such that not everyone sees all their postings, then what? It's only going to screen out the people who are stupid enough to post everything to everyone. 

Chris, that scenario is precisely what European digital privacy legislation is intended to prevent.  But some -- Google, of example -- find it stifling.