How HR Pros are Starting to use Social Media for Recruiting?

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In today’s world, we are starting to hear more of how people are gaining or loosing employment due to their Facebook or Twitter pages. Have you ever Google your own name to see what might come up? If you have not, you may want to give it a try. You might be surprised at what you’ll find. We have heard over and over again to never post anything online that you do not want found. How true! Ignorance in this regard is how hackers can get personal information and steal your identity.

Still, there are plenty of positives to report on social media. The HR department is using the new social advent to “spy” on workers, colloquially speaking, to see their real behavior behind the formality of an interview. And it’s not really spying, considering that this is all public record and public domain.

Statistics on Social Media

According to the hiring site from Career Builder, a nationwide study found that nearly 39% of employers use social media sites to research candidates for positions. Nearly 43% of those said that the information found played a part in their decision process.

What could be found? For those who have used social media and do look at others’ profiles, you know by now that some people like to post provocative or revealing photos; they can also state discriminatory comments about others that might lead the potential employers to believe that they are not the right fit. Furthermore, they might divulge information pertaining to their personal or social life that might hinder their chances for employment.

Using social media to find information about potential employees has been thought to be unfair and an invasion of privacy. Companies have to be careful how they decide to use the information found on social media sites. They will consider whether the information found is actually relevant to that person’s experience and skills, and how it relates to their application for employment.

Although researching on social media to check a person’s background and other personal information might be considered an invasion of privacy, the fact remains that potential employers still use that information in making their final decisions in the hiring process.

Be Careful Out There!

We have heard on the news how someone lost a job due to something said about the company they work for or something they did. Though some would argue that it is against their constitutional rights and right to free speech and so on, it does not seem to stop the practice of researching someone using social media. Besides, freedom of speech is never guaranteed by the employer.

You can protect your information on social media by carefully setting the privacy parameters available on that site. This way, you would get a notification if someone had searched your profile or you would have to give them permission to see your page.

If you do have information that you think might be looked at as incriminating, you may want to delete it, store it somewhere so it cannot be readily viewed, or take it off the site all together. Paying attention to what you post can be the difference in whether or not you are viewed as the right person for a potential job, fair or not.