Why does a prospective employer need my address? ( lemmy.world )

This happens a lot: I apply for a job and they ask for my complete address. Why? I would understand if they just want to know what city/town I’m in: That has bearing on how easily I can get to the office.

But why do they need to know my street address?

The only thing I can think: Indeed/LinkedIn/take-your-pick is building a profile of me based on this info, using my street as a proxy for my income, credit score, or, ultimately, for my social class.

From now on, when they ask me, I’m just going to put a rich person’s address. For this one I used a Brooklyn townhouse where Maggie Gyllenhaal and one of the Saarsgaards lives.

OutOfMemory ,

Background check?

PunnyName ,

Don’t need address.

Zorsith , (edited )
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

To mail you documents related/associated with your employment? Not really unheard of to receive 401k/insurance/other benefits mail. Also, taxes and tax documents like W2’s

Potentially background checks? Maybe? Otherwise yeah it’s a bit weird and more information than they really need.

Overreach in data collection is everywhere these days sadly… far too many things are not properly considered PII (personally identifiable information) even though multiple things in aggregate could completely doxx a person.

JackGreenEarth ,
@JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee avatar

401k letters? Either that’s a typo, or that’s a lot of letters.

EisFrei ,
@EisFrei@lemmy.world avatar

It’s the name of the pension account

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)

JackGreenEarth ,
@JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee avatar

Ah. I didn’t know about that

Zorsith ,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s really more of a US usage tbh. Most civilized countries have actual pensions and retirement plans (or at least I hope they do, not for lack of attempts to remove them)

otp ,

Whether a joke or not, I loved this comment. Sorry about the downvotes! Lol

numberfour002 ,

Companies aren’t mailing taxes, tax documents, or 401k/insurance/benefits docs to someone just because they applied for a job, though.

Zorsith ,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Fair point! I misread this, I’ll edit my comment.

lightnsfw ,

They can get your address after they hire you for that. They don’t need the other 90 applicants addresses.

AA5B ,

I doubt it’s a background check. Those cost actual money, so why do one before you need to?

Zorsith ,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Everyone and their mother in entry level job postings I can remember (2016-2020 ish range, so may have changed) had a caveat of passing a background check. This being in a relatively wealthy suburb, too. I imagine there’s some sizeable kickbacks from the companies doing them.

AA5B ,

Sure, you should assume every employer will do a background before hiring you. They’re cheap.

But NOT after you apply. They do cost something.

I was trying to make that distinction

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/30e7b571-0854-4855-a826-a4efaf6edad2.webp

sharkfucker420 ,
@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml avatar

What did MIT tech review mean by this

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

technologyreview.com/…/dna-tests-for-iq-are-comin…

basically warning of a possible Gattaca like scenario where your prospects are determined by the purity of your DNA

sharkfucker420 ,
@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml avatar

Ohhhhhhh they were being critical of the concept. I was wondering why an official MIT account would spout eugenics talking points lol

nifty ,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

Plenty of MIT/Harvard types are into eugenics. Don’t be fooled by the level of education someone has, doesn’t mean anything about their morals or ethics

sharkfucker420 , (edited )
@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml avatar

Oh im well aware of how popular eugenics is among academics. I was just suprised theyd post that on twitter

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Academics, not really. Too many, but not that many.

Faux intellectuals with a bachelor’s degree and the arrogance to pretend that makes them an expert in a field, yes.

CptEnder ,

MIT is quite different from the other Ivy Leagues.

afraid_of_zombies ,

I am so glad humanity has no history of using very bad metrics to make decisions with.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ed900b72-6c87-4da4-85ec-c3378887b016.jpeg

afraid_of_zombies ,

I know. There is a reason after my eldest became 1 we moved to an area we can’t afford.

cybervseas ,

The charitable explanation is HR knows they’d need it eventually if you do join up, so might as well as for everything now since they definitely need to know your state of residence. Also some companies send swag and other stuff to prospective hires.

Your explanation is more likely.

lonerangers1 ,

need to read the terms of service of the application software. I am sure there was some sort of accept box to check.

wagoner ,

I mean, we all know even if that’s true that HR’s gonna ask you to fill out your address again multiple times when onboarding as a new hire.

tkohldesac ,
@tkohldesac@lemmy.world avatar

I think they’re just trying to verify that you’re from a country they want to hire from and that you have a physical address. I just give them City Hall’s address because it’s in my same zip code and I doubt anyone’s going to verify that I physically live there.

tkohldesac ,
@tkohldesac@lemmy.world avatar

But I do agree that it’s a ridiculous thing to require. I also think it’s just bots collecting data. Plenty of fake jobs on LinkedIn from my experience.

eltrain123 ,

I wouldn’t say that it’s ridiculous. I am involved in hiring and administration at our company. We hire where the talent is, but knowing how much work is associated with a candidate can influence how I plan my work load. If you hire in the US, you have to set up tax accounts with the state, and sometimes municipality, that remote employees are located in… if you hire internationally… same thing only you may have federal, state/provincial, municipality accounts that need to be set up… which you have to research since every place has a different interface and policies.

Talent is talent, and we hire where we find good people, but hiring a candidate that is geographically located in a place we already have tax accounts set up is significantly easier and faster than having to set up accounts in new countries, states, or municipalities. Hiring remote can add days or weeks to the administrative lift associated with hiring and needs to be factored in or deadlines get missed and assignments drag.

To be clear, I work at a small company and wear several hats… admin/HR being a small part of my duties.

marcos ,

All your reasoning supports is asking for the city the person lives in.

Also, why is it your business if the candidate has a physical address or not? Making an effort to discover that looks very unethical to me.

Trainguyrom ,

addresses are wonky and non-uniform. You can get pretty close with ZIP codes since they were part of a larger standardization push for addresses nation-wide but there’s still corner- and edge-cases for every assumption you can make about addresses in this country

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

and that you have a physical address.

Homeless people need not apply!

Businesses are often required to do some things by mail, but also judge people’s reliability based on where they live. Another atupid hurdle for people having housing issues trying to get a job so they can afford housing.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA ,
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

Homeless people need not apply!

PO boxes work

PunnyName ,

Was homeless and had a PO box. They’re expensive and often many places don’t accept PO boxes as an address.

Maybe we can just house them.

GBU_28 ,

Ah, a systemic level solution to a specific individual’s problem! (The prospective hire).

Neither the employer or the prospective employee can house all the homeless.

PunnyName ,

And yet, plenty of employers are against housing, and will even lobby against it.

Maybe we need to house the homeless, and gut corporations.

GBU_28 ,

You just said the same thing. Even an altruistic employer and a well meaning prospective employer have no ability to do what you are saying

PunnyName ,

Sounds like they need to step up their game by housing the homeless in every way possible. Especially if it guts corporations.

GBU_28 , (edited )

As I said, they have zero ability to do so, as individual entities, outside of the humans involved voting, which is a default action, although.outsude this hiring scenario.

It’s not a “low” ability, it’s “zero”. So there’s no “step up” because there’s nothing to step.

Work reform, and housing reform come from government action, which is achieved through activism and voting.

Edit down votes from those expressing idealistic, unfocused, unhelpful behavior. Preaching platitudes does nothing

PunnyName ,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying

GBU_28 ,

A prospective hire is going to start lobbying, to change the system, to get an address, to get hired? This is what I’m talking about, y’all keep proposing efforts to create systemic change, which the players in the scenario neither have the time or ability to complete.

And lobbying is structured activism (via advocacy), which I mentioned in general.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Not if they filter out people who use p.o. boxes.

Trainguyrom ,

Fun fact: when I worked support for a device manufacturer I spoke with a customer who lived in a small town where instead of paying a couple of mail carriers they just gave every resident a PO Box. Every filter like that has its edgecase and I got to talk to one of them

tkohldesac ,
@tkohldesac@lemmy.world avatar

100% agree, they don’t want the filthy poors to be anything but filthy and poor.

For verification purposes, a zipcode I understand but FULL ADDRESS? I think not.

Edit: To clarify, I don’t agree that homeless people should be excluded.

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