More Employers Admit to Using Facebook, MySpace to Background Check Candidates
Anyone who has been using the Internet over the past few years has noticed the incredible rise in popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. But what many have failed to notice is the accompanying rise in the sites by employers who are always looking for new and innovative ways to exclude candidates from their hiring pools.
That may sound a little harsh but it is true. Too many hiring managers and human resource professionals are looking for the perfect candidate or feel that they have too many well qualified candidates. So what to do? Well, make your job easier by finding ways to eliminate candidates from consideration. I'm not saying I condone that behavior. Quite the contrary. But it happens. Too often. And to the detriment of the candidates and the employers. Recruiting isn't supposed to be easy. The most important things rarely are. But I digress.
I recently ran across a survey by Careerbuilder that indicated that 22 percent of hiring managers said they use social networking sites to research job candidates. That's twice the number the same survey found in 2006. While that increase is significant, I bet that the vast majority of the 78 percent of hiring managers who claim they aren't using the sites don't realize or don't want to admit that they actually are. When you run a candidate's name through Google, you are indirectly searching MySpace and other social networking sites which do not require users to login in order to view profile pages.
What else was in the survey? Some 34 percent report they found content that caused them to dismiss candidates from consideration. Of course, the vast majority of those hiring managers probably did the same stuff while they were in college but there were no digital cameras or social networking sites back then so the use of that information to exclude candidates from the hiring process is troubling at best and often quite hypocritical.
On the positive side, 24 percent of hiring managers indicated that they favored some job seekers over others because of their social networking profiles. These favored job seekers included attractive information about themselves in their profiles such as:
- Candidate's background supported their job qualifications;
- Great communication skills;
- Good fit for employer's culture;
- Profile page was professional;
- Great references;
- Wide range of interests;
- Awards or other accolades; and
- Profile was creative.
So all is not doom-and-gloom when it comes to employers searching Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites to learn more about job seekers. Most employers are doing so to exclude candidates and I think that's unfortunate for both sides. But some are using the sites to include candidates, and that's hopeful.
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