Using social networking sites in the hiring process: smart move or human rights trap? - Part One

Are you or the organization you work for using or thinking of using social networking sites (such as Facebook or MySpace) or otherwise looking into a potential employee's online presence (Google search, here we come) as a way to recruit the best and the brightest? 

If so, as you'll see below, you're not alone.  But, is leveraging the Internet to find your ideal employee a smart move that saves time and money or is it a human rights trap?  For that matter, are these types of searches just generally more of a legal headache than they're worth?

One of my terrific readers asked me to weigh in on this interesting issue.  And so, today is the first installment in a two-part series where I attempt to tackle it.  I'm not the first to discuss this subject (do a Google search on this topic and you'll find a huge number of news articles and blogs that have covered it, typically American) and I certainly won't be the last.  But, as usual, I'm going to try to look at things from a Canadian human rights law perspective.  Please remember though, my comments are general in nature and should not be taken as legal advice for your particular situation.

In today's post, I'm going to discuss how social networking sites fit within the current recruitment landscape.  

What are Social Networking sites?

Social networking sites are online communites that enable people with shared interests to communicate through a variety of networks.  The sites that I think most people are familiar with or have at least heard of are MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.

You gain entry into the sites by signing up and creating a user profile.  Once access is gained to the site, you can then look for people you know.  When you establish a connection with someone, whomever is in that person's network can now see your connection with the person.  On the flip side, you can also see who that person is connected to.

In addition, once you have access to the site you can share photos, videos, comments and more with those you are connected to.  Sharing in this way is easy because you post something once and everyone who you wish to see or access that information can now do so.

Why is there an interest in using Social Networking Sites to Recruit?

Employers seeking to find high quality candidates for job openings know they need to go where those potential candidates are.  And, statistics show that membership in social networking sites is growing exponentially.  For instance:

• LinkedIn has a user base of 30 million professionals world-wide;
• Facebook has more than 150 million active users world-wide; 
• MySpace has 110 million users world-wide. 

For further statistical information on the use of a wide variety of social networking sites, check out this helpful post from the blog Web Strategy by Jeremiah.

Ways Employers are Using Social Networking Sites to Recruit

It appears that employers are using social networking sites in the recruitment process in three ways:

1. to post ads for job openings or to create recruitment-oriented pages;
2. to search for potential job candidates using specific key word searches; and 
3. to screen job applicants by reviewing their social networking information to determine their 'fit' within the organization. 

The first two ways relate to the finding of employees, one obviously being more active than the other. The third way relates to the weeding out of candidates through the discovery of information that doesn't sit well with the employer.  This weeding out phase can presumably at any stage of the recruitment or hiring process: on receipt of a resume, before the interview stage, after the interview stage or subsequent to a conditional job offer being made, with the condition being a clean background check.

Trends

Studies in both Canada and the US indicate that scouring the Internet for information about job candidates is a growing trend:

• Careerbuilder.ca released a survey in December 2008 of 286 hiring managers and human resource professionals in Canada.  The survey indicated employers are looking to use the Internet as a vehicle for finding potential employees.  In particular, 9% were planning to increase spending on recruitment through the use of social networking sites; 
• earlier in 2008, a Careerbuilder.ca survey noted that 12% of Canadian employers were already screening candidates via the Internet on a regular basis while 19% planned to begin using these resources for the same purpose that year; 
• a June 2008 survey of 3,169 hiring managers and human resource professionals in the US indicated that 1 in 5 use social networking sites to research job candidates.  34% found information during their searches that lead them to reject a potential candidate from the selection process.  

Over time, I suspect that the desire to conduct Internet and social networking site searches will only increase as younger recruiters come into the workplace who are very much used to engaging in social networking activity.  Beyond that, they are already 'in the network' to enable access to information employers might be interested in seeking.

What can an employer find out?

The sky appears to be the limit here.  Many social networking sites have fill-in type forms that ask for a whole host of personal information.  Others give you options on what information you wish to make public.

But, just as an example, from my recent foray into Facebook, I could easily have disclosed my sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, religion and political affiliation without even venturing further than filling out a basic profile.  Once I upload my photo, you can now see my ethnicity and, if I didn't disclose it in my profile beforehand, my sex is obviously apparent.  If I take a step further and upload some photos of my family, now you know I'm married (if I didn't disclose it before) and that I have two children.  So, voila, without thinking much about it, I've disclosed information relating to the protected characteristics set out in most human rights legislation across Canada. 

There is more, though.  Many people don't consider what they say on social networking sites to be 'public' in nature (especially when we're talking about MySpace or Facebook and other more informal sites).  Instead, they see it as a forum to connect with friends.  So, the conversations and disclosures run the gambit. As do the photos and videos. This includes information that may expose potential disabilities such as addictions or physical or mental conditions that people may be contending with and 'talking out loud' about.  More potential protected characteristics.

Just as a general observation -- and this is very general -- my experience being involved in social networking sites so far is that younger users of these sites seem less inclined to compartmentalize their lives into 'public' or 'private', 'online' or 'offline'.  They just 'are' because they've grown up with this stuff.  With that comes postings which might seem, to those who have less or no involvement in using social networking sites, extraordinary or inappropriate.

People who are members on these sites usually do have access to privacy features that limit who can become their 'friend' or a member of their network, and thus, limits who has access to their personal information.  But, there may be those who either aren't aware of or do not know how to access those privacy features.  Others still may choose to ignore those features completely, primarily so their friends can find and connect with them easily.  And, again, you have the prevalent thought that whatever people say or show on these sites is not public in nature.  

But, tell that to a potential employer who hits proverbial pay dirt (positive or negative) when they find you on one of them.

Conclusion - Part One

So that is how the searching of social networking sites and the Internet generally appears to fit within the initiatives taken by employers to recruit what they believe to be the best employees.

Next up, in Part Two, I'm going to discuss the potential legal issues involved in doing these searches and in Part Three I'll talk about ways that may assist in avoiding legal liability.

As always, I'm interested to hear your comments.

Comments

[Nuclearrain]

I use LinkedIn - which is already built with fairly strong privacy settings, but which, of course, can be enhanced even further. There is even a delete and remove my profile option.

Facebook - is definitely OPEN. However, it can be secured to a near Fort Knox state if one does the privacy settings and ignores all application invitations (which are often marketers who developed silly applications for you to download and subsequently grant them permission and access to view your information and profile).

Perhaps we should collectively putting pressure on these networking sites to put some sort of tutorial on privacy settings and make them locked down by default so that people must learn how to access them before turning their profile fully public. This way, they can be fairly warned.

My online presence is often, though not always, hidden behind pseudonyms. Just some basic Internet street smarts is what i call it.

[Jobseeker]

Thank you for your sharing, i looking forward to hiring new job.

This article is helpful for me

[Jamie Beard]

Good Evening, my name is Jamie Beard and I am a staff member of Titan Television, my school's (Lee's Summit West High School) Broadcast Journalism class. I am currently doing a story on employers that scan Facebook before hiring an employee. It would be greatly beneficial to my story if I could receive an email back on companies that you know of who do this.
Thanks!
Jamie Beard
jrbeard0902@r7mail.leesummit.k12.mo.us

[Nate Holland]

First, I think social networking sites should really see to it that their users understand how the privacy settings work and where they're located. They should post it in the user "homepage" as a precautionary measure for their users so their identities are kept safe - at least within their network.

Second, I don't see anything wrong with companies/businesses posting job ads. What irks me though is that they tend to "judge" potential employees through what they see on the person's site - which is really unfair because these potential empolyees aren't able to defend themselves nor show employers their skills. I don't have problems with the job postings, really. I even think it's a brlliant way to get more people to view the ad but then they shouldn't base who to hire from their profile alone.

But as Michael Porter of WebJunction said, "Be tasteful, be careful, be smart." in writing your profiles. If you follow that, I'm sure you won't have problems even with potential employers.

[kedar]

where is part 2 and three. very interested in that..