Social Media background checks: Big brother in reverse

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User big brother 1984 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

During a time when more and more investment is being heaped onto ‘social networking’, it is getting around to the point where the definition of the term itself is becoming construed, redeveloped ever more ambiguous as time goes on. Where once we logged onto Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to share photographs, keeping contact with people we don’t really talk to and read each other’s personal news, we are now getting to a time of age where our accounts are having a more significant impact upon our everyday lives.

With Foursquare checking where we are, Facebook eyeing up who we’re with and Twitter listening to what we’re saying; it is time that we start taking care about what we do, who we are and keep into perspective just how we represent ourselves to the electronic and hyperreal Joe Public.

For those of us out there who are searching for jobs, the impact of what we put on our social networking sites could be more than just the cause of a laugh; depending who is viewing your page. A recent study that spoke to three hundred randomly selected employers found that 91% of them had screened a candidate through one of their social networking sites. This is significant news to anyone that is searching for a job and could have a factor-changing role in the way that we use our social networks. Out of the 91% that had viewed candidates, it was found that almost half, at 47%, had viewed the social sites of prospective employees only moments after reading an application. Another 27% screened an applicant after an initial conversation. More interestingly and crucial is the amount of employers that viewed a person’s social networking page only moments before making an offer. Although the figure is relatively low at 4%, this could have catastrophic consequences for anyone caught within the niche.

We can however, save anyone from that 4% by looking into just what employers thought when they looked upon the social networking page of a potential employee.

Out of the three hundred employers, it was found that 61% of them reported that they had rejected a candidate on the basis of what they had found on their personal social networking pages. Although there are a large amount of variants, it is possible to find out just exactly why these employers rejected people after viewing their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

The highest statistic that was found in the survey was that 13% of employers had rejected their candidates because that they had found that they had lied about their qualifications through viewing their social networking pages. Another 11% of employers rejected candidates because of inappropriate photographs, 10% for illegal drug references and 9% because of references to alcohol. Although we all like putting our party pictures up on Facebook , through the eyes of a stranger, the image that you portray could translate vastly different ideals; it is always best to have your tagged pictures on a private setting that is only available to your friends or selected people.

The news however, isn’t all doom and gloom; in fact a higher percentage of employers had actually hired employees after social networking screening than those who had rejected. With a figure of 68% it just goes to show that presenting yourself aptly and taking care of your social networking pages can have alluring consequences. It was found that 39% of employers had hired because they found that the individual that they were viewing had an attractive personality, 36% because the candidate showed creativity and interestingly, 24% because the candidate had other qualifications and awards that were viewable on their pages.

If anything, this one study by Computers in Personnel  just goes to show how integral social networking, the pursuit of employment and the development of HR software has become in the 21^st century, whether the people who own pages, are aware of it or not.

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Tagged as: Employment, Facebook, Human Resources, LinkedIn, MySpace, Social network, Social network service, twitter