Employers and social media: avoid these 4 background-screening blunders

When employers are looking to hire, there are many things they must be aware of: avoiding discrimination, following the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and not breaking ban-the-box laws, to name a few. Throw a few Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts into the mix, and suddenly making hiring decisions becomes a lot more treacherous. Be smart about who handles your hiring and create company-wide social media policies, and you should not have problems when using social sites to pre-screen job candidates. Here are some tips to avoid violating any state or federal laws when employers and social media background screening get involved. Blunder #1: Blindly searching Facebook. Better: Be choosy about what social sites you check. Just from a Facebook profile, you can easily tell the applicant’s race and gender, and often times you can also gather information about the applicant’s family status, sexual orientation or religious affiliation. This information is protected against discrimination under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the less deeply personal information you know about the candidate, the better. LinkedIn is a fairly safe bet of all the social networking sites, as most people do not use it for personal posts; if you’re fairly far along in the hiring process, and have done in-person interviews already, checking Facebook is a little bit safer. Blunder #2: Requesting or requiring that applicants share their passwords. Better: Send a friend request. It’s illegal in several states for employers to request social media passwords. Even if the practice is still legal in your state, you run the risk of finding out information that could be used to discriminate against a candidate. It’s safer to submit a friend or follower request; the candidate may not allow you full profile access, but it allows the candidate to protect his or her personal information. Blunder #3: Making hiring decisions based on aggregate profiles or online reference lists. Better: Ask the applicant for the information you want. You can run into problems with the Fair Credit Reporting Act if you try to work around a candidate when trying to check references via social media, or problems with the EEOC if you use aggregate profile data (such as the kind provided by Spokeo) in your hiring, particularly if you receive information that can be used to discriminate. If you want a list of references, ask for it. If you want the candidate’s contact information, ask for it. Blunder #4: Not having a plan for employers and social media. Better: Create company policies and make sure your employees know what they are. Without any guidance, hiring managers may not know what is legal or illegal to request when background-checking applicants. Having a social media policy in your company handbook not only ensures that current employees know what’s expected of them when it comes to social media, but in some instances, it also protects the company when issues of confidentiality come up. Make sure it states in your policy whether or not employees are ever allowed to comment on social media about clients or patients, or if they should refrain from referencing work on their profiles altogether. photo credit: Jason A. Howie via photopin cc]]>