What If a Would-Be Employer Wanted Access to Your Facebook Wall?

March 10, 2011 — -- A potential employer wants to ask your friends a few questions about you before offering you the job of a lifetime. What would you do?

"Don't worry, it'll be fun. Trust us," the website of R/GA says.

The branding company whose clients include Nike, Verizon, L'Oreal Paris and Nokia has a new approach for the job application process: interviewing your friends. The company is merging friends and digital media in the job hunt to make "The Social Interview."

"As a part of the application process for the R/GA internship program, we'll be posting questions on your Facebook wall for your friends to answer," the company's website explains. "First, you'll apply through our Jobvite site. Next, you'll schedule your Social interview. Then, we'll post three questions -- one per day -- starting on the scheduled date."

Not everyone is impressed.

"It's foolish," says Dan Schawbel, personal branding expert and author of "Me 2.0."

"What happened to the old job references? A lot of people's friends don't know them on a professional level or know how you would behave in the work place like your coworkers or bosses would know."

Job applicants interested in the paid internship at R/GA can opt-in or opt-out of the round of questions aimed at family, friends, frenemies, associates, childhood school mates and gawkers of the applicants Facebook wall.

"We're looking for innovative and creative thinkers in this medium," says Shannon Moorman, director of recruitment for R/GA.

But some people are leery of the opt-out/opt-in component. "They say the process is 'optional' but is it really," John Millikin, a professor at Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business. "If you decline to participate, does that come down as an indicator that you not the 'innovative and creative thinker' that they are seeking?"

R/GA's Moorman said the "decision will primarily be based on a candidate's technical skills and portfolio and in-person interviews, but this is a new way for them to demonstrate sophistication around using social media."

The buzz word is "social media," a common theme among employers. The company is not the first employer to use Facebook as an entree into the lives of job applicants. Facebook, the website that boasts 600 million users, is a popular scouting ground for employers that oft-times search the site for background on a candidate.

"I've been at companies where the person hiring has most definitely checked out the Facebook page of the prospective employee, but I think that asking for access is like asking to rifle through someone's closet," says Caroline Waxler, who works in online media.