Social media background checks prevalent, but come with pitfalls

Gone are the days when employers had to wait for background check results to arrive in order to dig up any dirt on a job applicant; while savvy employers still conduct all kinds of background checks on their potential employees, you’d be hard-pressed to find an employer that doesn’t review an applicant’s social media profiles, as more than 75 percent of employers admit to the practice of conducting social media background checks. In fact, it’s not even uncommon these days for employees to be connected to co-workers and bosses through Facebook or LinkedIn! Why are social media background checks so common, and is this a good or a bad thing for your business? It’s easy to screen out behavior you don’t want in your company. One can glean quite a lot of information from a candidate’s Facebook, Instagram or Twitter profiles, and learn about applicants’ habits. You may find photos of an applicant smoking when your company policy is to not hire tobacco users, or involvement in marijuana legalization groups when your company has a zero-tolerance drug policy. Likewise, negative status updates about previous jobs, co-workers or bosses can paint a vivid picture as to how the candidate might behave in a new position.  But it’s also easy to inadvertently discriminate. In trying to find bad behavior with social media background checks, you yourself may be committing one of the cardinal hiring sins — using social media to discriminate against an individual on the basis of race, religion, gender, age and a few other factors protected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A simple search for the candidate on social media, especially on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, often turns up a photo of that person’s face, which automatically reveals one’s gender and race. If you think discrimination may play a factor in not hiring an individual, it’s better to stay off the social platforms. And not all social sites are created equal. If you want to know the good qualities that a candidate will bring to a job, your best bet will be to look at their LinkedIn profile, as it will likely contain endorsements for certain tasks and recommendations from past employers or co-workers. Sites like Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook might not provide you with adequate information about what type of employee someone might be, as individual profiles on those sites are not typically intended to be viewed from a corporate perspective. Take care when utilizing social media background checks during the hiring process. To learn more about conducting social media checks, contact Mind Your Business.]]>