What is Social Media Background Check?
In order to determine whether a candidate is a good match for a position, employers often do a social media background check of prospective hires.
Some companies check a candidate’s public profiles on popular social media platforms quickly, while others look more closely at their blogs, comment sections, and other online footprints. Social media data can be used to verify application-related specifics and uncover brand-new information about a candidate’s behavior.
Background checks on social media: Pros and Cons
Social media background checks Utah can have both favorable and unfavorable effects on a business and its applicants, even while employers can acquire useful information by looking through job seekers’ online activities. Make sure you are aware of the potential benefits and risks before deciding on a social media background check strategy:
The Advantages Of Looking At A Candidate’s Social Media
Hiring managers can learn about each applicant’s personality from the content they share on social media. Through a number of advantages, searching job applicants’ social media accounts can assist your hiring team in making an informed choice:
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Examining cultural fit: Some people use their social media pages to talk about their values, ambitions, and personalities, giving you a feel of how they would fit within the workplace culture. Performing a social media background check on applicants can help guarantee that they uphold your company’s vision even when they are not working.
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Finding red flags: Examining an applicant’s social media posts might help you spot unpredictable or worrisome conduct that could endanger the company’s reputation or irritate current employees. Background checks on candidates’ social media accounts can show whether they lied on their application or had any potentially negative material uploaded online.
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Protecting the reputation of your business: If your business has a strong reputation, you may need to set high standards for your employees’ public personas, including their online public postings. It is possible to link an employee’s offensive or worrying social media posts to their employer, which could result in negative press.
Background Checks on social media Can Have Negative Implications
Social media background checks raise many ethical and privacy issues because they reveal personal information about a candidate. Social media background checks done improperly might spread false information or negatively affect the hiring process in the following ways:
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False and duplicate information: Not all online information may be trusted. You might not be able to identify which account belongs to the job candidate because so many people have the same name. Online personas can also be created, leading your hiring manager to incorrectly credit posts to a candidate.
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Possibility of discrimination: Social media background checks must adhere to federal standards, much like criminal background checks. During a social network check, it’s possible to come across protected material that can improperly influence your hiring decisions.
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Negative effect on employer brand: Some individuals can consider social media checks to be an infringement on their privacy. Extensive social media monitoring could give the wrong impression about your organization as being extremely strict or controlling.
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Wasting time: Internal social media background checks might take a lot of time if you choose to do them. Without being certain that each candidate even has a profile on each social media site, you may need to examine a number of them for each contender.
Social Media Background Check For Employment
The technique of searching a job applicant’s accounts and activity on social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other places is known as pre-employment social media screening (also known as a social media background check) for employment. The goal is to find out more about the applicant’s background and see if there is anything the business should be aware of prior to making an employment offer.
It is the same as the previously mentioned pre-employment social media screening, but anyone can do one for any purpose. Any information that is placed online is there to stay and available to be accessed by the public, free of charge, depending on the platform and the user’s security settings. Seek one of the best employment screening companies in Utah, SimpliVerified to help you conduct and run a social media background check.
How to Run a Social Media Background Check
Use the following tactics to stay within the law and make the most of your social media background checks Utah:
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Use a third-party reporting organization that abides by the stringent FRCA guidelines.
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Create social media monitoring procedures in your employment screening company and be transparent about them when employing new employees.
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To comply with federal reporting requirements, request the applicant’s written permission before looking through their social network.
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Never ask a candidate for their password; only look at publicly available information.
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If you come across any questionable stuff, make sure to write it down to defend yourself from claims of discrimination.
How many people get rejected after a social media background check?
Why take a chance when more than half of employers (54 percent) discovered social media content that led them to reject a candidate? Before you post, take a moment to consider the following main factors that drove away employers from a candidate’s online presence:
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Candidate shared provocative or offensive images, videos, or information: 39%
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Candidate disclosed information regarding taking drugs or alcohol: 38%
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Candidate made racial, gender, or religiously derogatory remarks: 32%
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Candidate disparaged their former employer or a coworker: 30%
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27 percent of candidates lied about their experience.
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Candidate’s communication abilities were lacking: 27%
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Candidate was connected to illegal activity: 26%
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23 percent of candidates disclosed private data from prior companies.
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Screen name of the candidate was unprofessional: 22%
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Candidate who made up an absence: 17%
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Candidates who blogged too often: 17%
In Conclusion, How Risky Are Social Media Checks?
Although there is a case to be made for employing social media background checks to get a more complete picture of your candidates, they do have certain drawbacks. Social media user-generated content cannot be vetted, may be erroneous, and may even belong to the wrong person.
When social media inspections aren’t done correctly, they are of little use and expose your company to a host of problems.
However, by heeding the suggestions in this article, you can utilize social media screening as a tool to better hire people while also abiding by the law.
