Hiring the most valuable person in an organization leads you to search for his background details whether it is about a criminal record or employment history. For evaluation of information, connecting with different sources is quite obvious. It will help companies to grab certain information about applicants and allow them to counter unnecessary headaches. However, in the most advanced world of digital technology, it’s hard to neglect social media platforms. Going through the profiles of candidates on social media is also a way to uncover their personalities. It accelerates the process of BPSS screening.
What is social media background screening?
Every step is vital if it leads you towards your goals. Making the comprehensive search for knowing any candidates’ profiles allows companies to gather more information about them. If the background screening is done through social media platforms, it would be social media background screening. In this process, employers go through people’s profiles on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or Linkedin. Through this step, they come to know about the applicant’s lifestyle and viewpoints.
According to CareerBuilder survey, 70% of employers take help from social media to screen their candidates’ profiles. Therefore, being a candidate, it is important for you to think about what you are going to post. Employers engage dedicated people to scoop on your online personality and keep eye on your every move. 69% of companies consider online search engines (Yahoo, Google, and Bing) to seek more details of their applicants. Moreover, the key points of evaluating the social profiles of applicants before hiring are:
- To collect more information about the qualifications for the job
- Understand others’ thoughts about the candidate
- To check any professional online account of the applicant
- Reasons for not recruiting the job seeker from every possible angle
How social recruiting differ from social media background screening?
While going through the concept of a social media background screening, don’t confuse with social media recruiting. Both concepts are different. Social media recruiting uncovers the recruitment of applicants through social media channels such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Whereas, social media background check allows recruiters to gather sufficient information about the applicants to make effective hiring. Importantly, both concepts refer to the use of social media but not in the same sense.
Hiring from social media is not an all-time high; it took speed in the last few years. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey, the reason for hiring from social media is to attract potential applicants who are not actively looking for a job yet. Some crucial points of recruiting candidates from social media could be:
- Make a direct connection with candidates via messages on their social profiles
- Easy to post a job advertisement and boots its outreach
- Better use of employee advocacy planning
Pros of social media background check
To speed the hiring process and effectiveness, checking social media profiles is not a surprise. Employers include the process of background screening via social media because of the following reasons:
Know about a professional recommendation or reference
Through social media screening, companies get to know about the remarks or reviews of the applicants’ behavior. Professional references and recommendations help employers to make the right decision about candidate hiring. It amplifies candidates’ stability and solidity.
Save companies from negative influence
Making the wrong choice in hiring job seekers can lead to unnecessary chaos and stress. Toxic behavior and verbal communication ruin the companies’ work environment. Therefore, checking employees’ comments or reactions on social media lets employers know about their personalities.
Discover hidden talents
Many employees feel awkward showing their talents being in an organization. Sometimes, companies can’t provide the environment to acknowledge their employees’ talents. However, social media is the platform where people don’t shy and share their skills interestingly. While checking social media profiles, employers get to know about their candidate’s hidden talents and attributes.
A cost-effective approach for screening
Digging out the social media profiles of the candidate is acts as a cost-effective approach for recruitment. It also saves significant time as employers don’t have to wait for getting responses from previous employers. If you find everything fine about any candidate, you can make an instant decision and hire him. Indirectly, it deletes the need for third-party to gather more information about the applicants.
Legal risks of social media background checks
- While going through the social media profiles of candidates, employers may face the following legal risks:
- It is about discrimination allegations if a candidate belongs to any protected group and does not get the job. Therefore, it is suggested to have non-discriminatory information while making any hiring decision.
- Before marking someone unfit or unqualified, make sure to utilize all available information sources. This is because employers could face lawsuits for negligent hiring if rejected candidates show the easy accessibility of information online.
- Another major risk is connected with cyber-slamming and computer twins. People post information under the name of another person. Thus, employers need to make sure that they are checking the actual person’s profile.
- Social media screening also raises the issues of legal-off duty conduct. To protect employees’ privacy, they have the right to take action if they got any disturbance or discrimination through any action performed in any manner.
- To maintain the privacy of users, many social media channels allow them to use privacy settings. It will not help employers to get more information or may raise legal issues if they try to breach their privacy.
Conclusion:
It is good to get more informed while performing background screening via social media. When you have no clue how to extract more information about your candidate, share your concern with us. From BPSS Clearance, you will receive profound assistance in BPSS screening of desired candidates without any creating chaos. We are available round the clock to assist our clients and help them to hire the right applicant in their organizations.