Are you looking to hire new employees for the first time?
Most likely, you’re familiar with what the employment industry is saying these days about social media background checks being a key tool for making tough hiring decisions.
For many, social media has joined resume reviews, interviews, and criminal history checks as being a standard procedure of all hiring policies. It’s interesting how it’s made us assume employers are now looking at social profiles as if it’s a normal part of the job screening process.
Or, you might be an entrepreneur or a business owner.
Either way, you need someone reliable – a perfect candidate. So, when you’re looking to hire new employees for the first time, you look for a screening process. One that filters out the weak applicants and removes unsavory individuals.
With the noise you hear about social media and Facebook background checks over the years, you decide it’s a necessary step for the recruiting process…
Well, that’s not exactly the case.
Have you signed up for a live demo with staffingsoft? We offer a free consultation and help you develop a reliable recruiting system to find and manage the top talented candidates so you don’t have to burn through your time or budget. If you haven’t already, save your spot now by clicking here!
How Social Media Checks Work
One of the first questions that come across your mind when before doing a social media search for the applicant is probably along the lines of:
“What am I going to do about them?”
Here’s one good clue:
No background check company offers a service for social media screening.
These firms will virtually do any kind of background check as long as it’s legal, fair and following regulations. From searching for details such as:
- Criminal records
- Financial history
- Verifying educational credentials
- Ensuring references are legit
However, these same firms won’t offer to perform social media background checks.
If you want to do them yourself, then you’re on your own. Whether that’s a facebook background check you’re looking into, or through Instagram – these pre-employment checks will only add little to no value.
For those employers that do social media background checks, it usually doesn’t happen until after an interview.
But, before the interview even takes place, they’ll look at the candidate’s formal applications. This includes their resume and job application, so they can see who’s a good fit for the company and who they are actually interested in.
The pool is then narrowed down by the interviewing process.
Once that’s out the way, this is when the social media searches would come into play. It lets you identify any red flags from the top prospects in your narrowed candidate pool. In other words, these social media background checks aren’t really a key component to the employee screening process.
Instead, it’s a way to see if an applicant is true to themselves and indeed the person they present themselves to be in the interview.
That being said, this means most hiring managers will only ever be doing social media background checks to a few applicants. And, the way these checks are done are the same to what you would normally expect:
- An employer goes onto Facebook
- Search up the name of the applicant you’re looking for
- Find that person’s profile (based on name, photo, location, etc)
- Browse around their profile and look for any potential red flags
It can be more accurate to say the main drive behind pre-employment social media searches are to find red flags, rather than finding things that compliment the candidate.
Why Employers Use Social Media For Screening
Checking a potential employee’s social media doesn’t just give you general information about them.
It shows you exactly what type of person they are.
Most can say, it’s invaluable information because you’ll be able to see if those applicants are the same type of person who they say they are on their resumes or job application. When it goes well, it adds to their credibility and can help you make the decision on whether to offer a job opportunity or not.
That’s all there is to it.
It’s understandable why you would use social media for pre-employment screening seeing how covid-19 has changed the way we hunt for new talent.
While there are advantages for using social media as a screening method, it also comes with its own setbacks. There are good reasons for why you should leave out the whole process in the first place.
The Main Advantages Of Social Media Background Checks
Before we get into those reasons for why you should skip the social media background check, we’ll first look at its main advantages.
This way, you understand why it’s a big fuss in the employment industry.
After you get a good understanding of the reasons for why you should leave it out, you’ll see how the cons heavily outweigh the pros.
You Understand Your Candidates Better
There are more that can be seen not just by the words on the job application, but through their lifestyle which can show a lot about their character.
However, their social profiles can give you a glimpse of how they spend their time and lets you see what type of person they are. Sometimes, there are things you can learn that you wouldn’t have otherwise seen on their CV.
For instance, you’re looking to hire a marketer and you come across one applicant.
After checking their social profiles, you find out they’ve managed to grow an audience through SEO and digital marketing.
Once you discover hidden talent like this, it’s easier to make a hiring decision.
At the same time, it’s also a double-edged sword because it could lead to discrimination. You’re better off implementing virtual recruiting since you can get a better understanding through a face-to-face interaction.
Create An Ideal Working Environment
When one candidate compared to another is lacking in work experience, you might conclude that they’re not a good fit.
This couldn’t be more far from the truth.
Even if some of their skills or qualifications are lacking, there’s value they might have that makes up for it.
For example, after doing a social media background check, you might find they’re genuinely passionate about what they do. They’re not motivated by a salary and there’s more room for self-growth. In the long-term, it would be a better investment since they strongly align with your company values.
As you find more candidates whose personality and values align with your company mission, you create an environment of like-minded people. This comes with several benefits such as improved productivity, communication and performance.
It’s Budget-Friendly & Saves Time
In some aspects, a Facebook background check can be useful because it doesn’t cost anything.
More importantly, it can be seen as an effective strategy to search remotely for the right people who can help your company grow. It’s especially helpful for startups who don’t have a hiring system set in place.
Though, pre-employment checks using social media aren’t the same as applicant tracking systems.
3 Strong Reasons Why You Should Skip Social Media Background Checks
The whole process sounds simple, right?
You narrow down your applicant pool and pick a few people you’d seriously consider hiring. Then, you do a Facebook background check to see if there are any inappropriate photos or statuses on their profile.
While you may get the benefits mentioned earlier, it’s not entirely ethical or advantageous.
1. They reveal information that employers are not supposed to know
When you draft a job application for your company, there are a number of rules that you need to follow.
For instance, you’re not allowed to ask about an applicant’s age or marital status. In some parts of the country where ban-the-box legislation is on the books, you’re not even allowed to ask about criminal history.
These rules are there to prevent discrimination or bias in hiring.
But, when you check an applicant’s social profile it’s more or less the same thing. You’re almost certainly going to learn about some of these pieces of information that no employer is supposed to have when in reality, these should be kept confidential and outside your knowledge.
When doing a Facebook background check, you’ll disclose a lot of personal information. This includes:
- Age
- Race
- Native language
- Religion
- Sexual orientation
- Political affiliation
- Marital status
When you get your hands on personal information like this and you can see whether or not the applicant has children, or whether they drink or smoke, you name it – it clouds your judgement.
After learning details like this, it’s difficult to make an unbiased hiring decision.
2. They are frowned upon by the EEOC
Is the risk of breaking the law worth it?
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission frowns upon social media background checks for the reasons laid out above. Most of all, it increases the chances of bias and discrimination entering the hiring process.
Even though social media checks aren’t illegal themselves (at least not yet), you could end up breaking the EEOC laws without even realizing it.
This time, let’s say an employer looks at the Facebook page of a female applicant.
The action of simply pulling up the webpage is legal. But, while browsing the profile, you or the hiring manager notice a woman has just recently announced that she is pregnant. Now, due to concerns about maternity leave, the employer decides not to hire the woman for the job and instead, goes with an equally qualified male applicant.
In this case, the employer has committed an employment discrimination crime.
As a result, you could get sued by both the EEOC and the female applicant since she was unfairly rejected.
3. They can be a big waste of time
The last reason to skip social media background checks is plain and simple:
It can lead to a huge waste of time and a substantial loss of productivity.
When you sit down to do a Facebook background check and you’re looking at an applicant’s profile, the whole endeavor could end up being fruitless. There are other things you can spend your time on where it’s more beneficial for both you and the candidate.
In some cases, the applicant won’t even have a Facebook or Instagram profile.
If they do, then maybe they’ve implemented extensive privacy settings to prevent non-friends and people they don’t know from stalking them. Or, maybe the person goes by a different name on social media than the name they’ve written down on their application.
The point is, there are better uses of your time than chasing phantoms.
Why not use those hours to find a reputable background check firm for criminal screenings? You could even spend the time interviewing a few extra applicants.
When you take social media background checks out of the equation, you’ll get more out of your time. On top of that, you won’t need to sleep with your eyes open because you won’t have to worry about accidentally breaking any of the hiring laws.
Above all, you’re not putting yourself at risk.
Or instead, why not use the time productivity by grabbing a free demo with staffingsoft?
You’ll be equipped with the tools necessary to manage the recruiting process so you can rest assured you have a system that effectively attracts the right talent your company needs. What’s there to lose?
 |
 |
Conclusion
Social media background checks aren’t the best solution for your hiring process.
Though it helps us get a better understanding of the applicant’s character, it can also have the opposite effect.
What you see posted online by a potential employee isn’t always intentional. And, using those details to analyze their growth and value isn’t the best or smartest call to make. Unlike a handful, not everyone is willing to open up or reveal their personalities – some will prefer to keep this private.
What are your thoughts when it comes to using social media for the hiring process? If you found this article useful or have any questions, feel free to share or leave a comment below!
English 
Spanish