this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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Work Reform

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by mulcahey to c/workreform
 

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.

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[–] tkohldesac 36 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] tkohldesac 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] tkohldesac 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

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