Rumor has it that the demand for Silicon Valley engineers is so great that sometimes, when a company gets bought out, the new owners want to keep only the engineers–everybody else gets “laid off.” However, they also don’t want anyone to know they’ve bought the company, because they don’t want recruiters pouncing on their newly-acquired engineers. So the acquiring company prohibits its engineers from updating their LinkedIn profiles, and also tells the people who are being laid off that, if they want their severance, they can’t update their LinkedIn profiles either.
To keep reading, click here: Can You Control Your Employees’ LinkedIn Profiles?
Aside from LinkedIn, aren’t the laid off people updating the resumes that they send out looking for new jobs…so don’t the headhunters find out this way anyway?
CORRECTION: just DON’T take a week off….
I read this article of Linkedin ownership ( http://blog.ogletreedeakins.com/who-owns-an-employees-linkedin-account/ ) and it can be taken either way. If the company has a policy in place, then THEY may be seen to own it, however, if not then the person’s name that is listed as the account holder is seen to own the information.
Personally, my facebook, email, twitter & other online sites are for my own personal use and if I were ever told by a company it was a job requirement to share my passwords… well I would not take the job, or find another one. The woman in the above article would not have needed a lawsuit if she had not shared her password, just as so many people do.
Businesses have gotten themselves into trouble as well by allowing staff to have access to password information to online sites.
People are entitled to free speach & are allowed online forums for a reason. A company who tries to control that is not worth working for, IMHO.
There has to be SOME separation from your personal & work life!
This is great information for anyone doing a quick and dirty employee screening via Linked In. What might seem to be a discrepancy may not be an intentional deception on the part of the employee. It looks like other factors might be at work. Thanks for the heads up!
– Tim