Two weeks ago an HR Manager/client advised that she had attended a conference where a speaker insisted that social media MUST be used to check out people and their backgrounds during a recruitment process.
Last year we worked on a position where a candidate had a bad trading record on Trade Me…
Given this is a HOT Topic we decided to present an overview of a recent blog talk radio show we listened to, which follows the comments and talk around people using or checking social media prior to employment.
DownUnder Recruiting “The Angry Man Show”
by Bill Boorman
Justin Hillier (Social Recruiting 360) is very against the practice and likens it to paparazzi style harassment where candidates are being chased for any piece of dirty information on them. The danger is that there’s nothing stopping hiring managers or recruiters from doing this so people might not be hired due to their beliefs or behavior in their personal lives which has nothing to do with their professional profile. People should be entitled to keep them separate.
Jared Woods (Workplace Romances) was recently asked by students in a graduate recruitment program if recruiters they friend on Facebook would use the information they post against them. The Engineering Consultancy Jared works for decided early on that they wanted to be their employer and not their friends because they wanted to maintain the separation of professional and personal lives, so candidates wouldn’t feel spied on.
Michael Specht (inspecht) brought up some interesting statistics from a recent Deloitte survey on ethics in the workplace which found that:
61% of employees said that even if employers were monitoring their activities they wouldn’t change what they were doing as they know it’s not private and have made adjustments to their profiles to take that into account.
53% felt that their profiles were none of their employers business
40% of business executives disagreed with that opinion and felt it was their business
30% of business executives admitted that they already monitor what’s going on with their employees informally
Bill Boorman rightly said that despite what the law says realistically it’s hard to ignore this information and it comes down to educating hiring managers and HR professionals on how to deal with that information.
Garth Jones (garethmjones blog) is strongly against using social media for background checking and had the following comments:
We advocate work life balance so why shouldn’t people be allowed to let their hair down if it doesn’t affect their work?
What are we measuring - Hysteria? There’s plenty of ways to measure deviant status apart from social networks so why not just check there? E.g. background, criminal, credit checks.
What are we talking about? Need to focus on relevant information and not personal conversations as it’s evasive and intrusive. The only ones qualified to make judgement calls on this content are training professionals and not the average manager, employer or recruiter.
Need to defend our social media footprint and our right not to be judged about it in our professional lives.
We are promoting prejudice behavior. To those in their late teens to 20’s they are used to posting photos and comments and not being judged by others for posting them. Older generations are simply making voyeur judgments of something they don’t understand so don’t look.
Engagement, Authenticity and Employer Brand are hot topics but we’re encouraging people not to be authentic and watch what they’re saying in order to be employable. We’re already afraid of what we do because of litigation so now we have to be careful of what we say despite where social media is heading – this is crazy! We need trust!
Janice Worthington (Executive Job Search Coach) feels we need to be realistic that human beings will judge other human beings and so we need to be careful how we behave. Jeremy Worthington (Executive Job Search Coach) says people need to focus on Search Engine Optimisation to manage your profile content to deliver the information you DO want people to view and identified a new business trend will be to suppress profiles which have negative perceptions. Jeremy did however feel that Recruiters do need to undertake Google Searches for a person’s name with key words such as issues, problems, criminal record etc to help make informed decisions as this information is public.
You need to be aware of the employment laws relating to your rights to search or not search. Employers are responsible for the welfare of their company and therefore need to make sure they have responsible employees working for them but we’re all adults so where’s the trust? No one’s professional 24/7 so who cares and who are you to judge anyway? Without context the information you gather socially is irrelevant as it’s people making personal and emotive responses.
Legally it’s hard to prove that you haven’t used social information to judge suitability. Cyber twins are an issue with people who have the same name as you and create false identities which is a problem.
Paul Jacobs asked if it’s ok for job seekers to do background checks on recruiters, hiring managers, and the company they are interviewing with. The unaminous response was that they should definitely be asking for referrals and conduct reverse checks before making a decision to join an organisation.
Skills and qualifications are only a small part of an individual’s success in a role as we need to consider cultural fit but this works both ways. Using social media for background checking is going to happen and we can’t stop it so we need to be aware of the implications. Companies simply can’t take the risk because of the current business environment so you need to be careful with what you put out there in the public domain.
Final Comments:
Businesses need a clear policy on using social media for background checking with both legal and moral views considered
Make it a visible and significant part of your recruitment process which opens up discussions and doesn’t go sneaking around behind people’s backs
Keep it in context – be open, ask questions and don’t make assumptions
Both sides (employee & employer) are affected and looking, so think about what you’re pushing out there
Educate people that you’re doing this and make sure you disclose anything you find
Build a standard code of conduct and only do it in a positive way or you’ll face legal ramifications
Embrace social media for personal and professional connections without prejudice or cultural diversity will be in jeopardy
It is human nature to pry so put a policy in place with guidelines to protect both sides
