Social Media in the Hiring Process

As discussed in the Managers Notebook, Dont Get Screened Out in a Social Media Screen , as a job applicant, it is best to recognize that many employers are using social media screening and accordingly to put your best foot forward. In this case, we take another look at the use of social media in the hiring process and ask you to consider issues from the perspectives of an applicant and a manager.

Many employers are using social media, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, in their recruitment and hiring process. As illustrated in Figure 5.8, the use of social media ranges from promotion, to public screening, and to private screening. Employers use social media as a promotion tool when they place ads and recruit for job applicants on social networking sites. Public screening refers to employer use of publically available digital information, such as postings, profiles, and blogs, in the evaluation of job applicants. Private screening, on the other hand, involves employers asking applicants to provide access to their private social networking accounts.

There has been surprisingly little research on the effectiveness of social media as a recruitment tool or as a screening tool.

However, there have been an increasing number of legal protections offered to job applicants regarding private screening.

Employers may be overstepping a line of expected privacy by asking applicants for passwords to their social networking sites or by asking applicants to log in so that the employer can review the account. Given privacy concerns, legislation prohibiting this practice has been proposed or passed in various states and at the federal level.

QUESTIONS

1. Do you think that the use of social media for recruitment is an effective approach to recruit workers?

2. As a manager looking to hire additional workers, what steps would you take to maximize the effectiveness of your

recruitment efforts using social media?

3. Using social media to recruit for job openings may disproportionately tap into younger applicants. Older workers

could be unintentionally precluded from the applicant pool to the extent they are less present and active on social networking sites. Why would this be a problem? What would you recommend to eliminate or reduce this problem?

4. What advice would you give someone who is actively seeking work in relation to their activities on social media?

What should they avoid saying or doing? Should they consider tidying up their profiles, comments, and content?

How likely is it that a potential employer will look at their social media activities? How should they react if a potential employer asks for access to their accounts?

5. Companies have recently been created, such as Social Intelligence, that offer pre-employment social media

screening. Using an Internet search, identify some of the companies offering this service. What do the companies

offer? Would you recommend the use of such a third-party approach to performing social media screening of job applicants? Why or why not?

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