Social media and recruiting

Scope

Social media not only allows recruiters to locate passive candidates, but also allows companies to advertise openings. LinkedIn, a professional networking site, allows employers to post available jobs for a fee (though employers could also post a status on LinkedIn for free to alert their contacts of a job opening).

Regulatory citations

• None

Key definitions

• None

Summary of requirements

Sites like Facebook and Twitter are geared toward social networking, but employers with a presence on these sites can still use them for recruiting. Companies can easily alert their Facebook friends and Twitter followers of job openings or company career fairs. Social networking makes it easy for friends and followers to share such opportunities with their own contacts, thereby granting employers a relatively wide reach.

Social media typically gives employers access to a greater number of applicants, which may come with the opportunity to hire more qualified candidates.

Getting started with social media recruiting. While social media can be a powerful recruiting tool, employers do have some work to do to make social media work for them. A company must create its own networks by establishing a web presence. An organization that builds a strong brand on social media may not only be gaining favor with potential customers, but with potential employees as well. This can be particularly important to attract members of younger generations.

Establishing connections on social media is an integral part of creating an online presence. An organization’s connections might initially include current or former employees or customers, but could extend to include almost anyone. From a recruiting standpoint, an employer never knows whose professional contacts, friends, or family might make an exceptional candidate for the company.

Employers might also consider joining professional networks relevant to their fields on social media.

Vetting candidates. Not only does social media widen employers’ access to potential employees, but once those potential candidates are identified, social media provides the opportunity to obtain background information on potential candidates.

• Public information. Of course, employers only have access to the information that a candidate makes publicly available, and savvy users may know how to keep private that information that may turn off employers. Nevertheless, employers may still be able to rule out candidates who haven’t taken the time to ensure their social media presence is a professional one.
• Specified searches. When looking for information about applicants online, employers that do vet applicants via social media would be wise to define what they are looking for rather than simply peruse social media profiles haphazardly. Individual LinkedIn profiles, for example, often give employers access to the work histories, professional associations, and educational background of prospective employees.
• Know what to look for. Before reviewing the social media profiles of prospective employees online, it’s a good idea to make a list of the type of information that would make an individual a good candidate, and also the type of information that might take an individual out of consideration. For instance, if hiring a marketing professional, an employer might want to see that a prospective employee is active online, while the employer may be turned off by multiple errors in spelling or grammar.

Asking for social media passwords. Many employers use social media to vet applicants before they’re formally considered as a way to narrow down the applicant pool. However, other employers have gone so far as to ask prospective employees for their social media passwords or to ask applicants to log in while the employer looks on (sometimes called “shoulder surfing”) to allow the employer to get a look at an applicant’s full social media presence. Where a password is entered, an employer would be able to get ahold of much more information than just what the applicant had intended to be available publicly.

However, the practice of asking for social media passwords or requiring applicants to log in for the employer to see during the screening process isn’t widespread, and in some states, it isn’t even legal. Even in states where the practice hasn’t been outlawed, employers risk negative publicity and public pushback — two things that have caused other employers to discontinue their practice of asking for social media passwords.

The risks. Researching an employee online can help a company narrow down an applicant pool, but the process isn’t without risk. At the same time that a recruiter might be researching a prospective employee’s background and overall image, the recruiter may well be also collecting protected information about a candidate that most employers would prefer not to have.

• Too much information. For instance, consider a candidate whose Facebook profile is publicly available. When a company researches the candidate’s background, it doesn’t seem to be a great fit for the available position. However, from the Facebook page, the employer also finds out that the candidate is African American, practices Judaism, and suffers from fibromyalgia. While the employer may still refuse to hire the individual based on a lack of basic qualifications for the job, the employer will also want to be able to prove that the employee’s protected characteristics didn’t influence that decision.
  • Reducing TMI risk. While this is a real risk of vetting applicants online and/or via social media, employers can limit their risk by having a different individual conduct the online research than the person who will be making the employment decision. A recruiter might gather the pertinent information and supply it to a hiring manager, but not share the non-pertinent (and possibly protected) information. Since the person making the decision about hiring never had access to protected information, a strategy like this will make it easier to show that protected information wasn’t considered.
• Social media doesn’t always lead to more information. Some employers find that the risks associated with vetting applicants online outweigh the benefits and choose to avoid the practice altogether. Employers should also consider that some applicants won’t have any publicly available information online, and aside from professional qualifications that prospective applicants would be likely to willingly share, most won’t have anything available online that would affect a hiring decision. Vetting prospective employees via social media is rarely a comparable substitute for traditional background checks for those companies and industries which require them.