There is a growing trend to use online social media - facebook, myspace, etc - to gather information or a "reference" of sorts, on prospective candidates. Putting aside the discussion of an individual's privacy for the moment, liability is top of mind for Human Resource Managers in regard to social media and the prospect of lawsuits against their companies.
Human Resource Managers have had it hammered home to, above and beyond all else, be concerned with liability. There are so many areas a company can be open to liability after all; hiring, firing, promotions, credit checks, performance plans … tell me when to stop.
Liability is so prominent that there’s a whole industry dedicated to telling us what can get their companies sued and how to avoid it. Much of that advice is well-intentioned and valuable, but occasionally over the top in the interest of protection.
Go to any HR conference these days and you’ll hear speakers waxing poetic about the risks of viewing the social media accounts of candidates in the selection process. It’s the obvious stance when you think about it. You viewed a social media account, saw something you didn’t like and made a hiring decision that had nothing to do with someone’s ability to do the job.
Are HR Managers damned for judging a candidate's profile on facebook or damned if we don't? Some things to consider from HR's point of view:
1. Can we afford NOT to Google a candidate and see where the digital trail takes us? Most any CEO if asked: “Do you expect me to do everything legally at my disposal to ensure the hires we make can do the job and are great fits for our company?” will likely give a positive response. Your CEO expects you to deploy all legal measures you can reasonably afford to make sure you’re making great hires.
2. Hiring managers are becoming much more tolerant, hopefully, about what they see in a candidate’s social media footprint. The transparency of social media created a bit of a blowback effect in the early days. We never had access to pictures of candidates drinking before, so there was some shortsighted judging going on as a result. Now? We’ve seen enough to remember that people drink socially and pictures can be dated. As a result, we’re much more tolerant when we find out that a candidate’s not spending weeknights at church. Our threshold for what constitutes a red flag is much higher and more related to whether someone can do the job. That’s a good thing.
3. Candidates don't always get the real reason they were rejected, and that doesn’t change simply because social media is at play. Unless the candidate in question has a skills gap, most organizations don’t share the real reason for rejection. As a candidate, you had a personality issue and seemed a little angry at the world during the interview process. Did the company provide you with candid feedback? Of course they didn’t. We’re already trained on what not to say that might present liability in the feedback process. Why should questionable pictures or content mined through social media be held to a higher standard?
Stop me when you’ve heard this risk reducer: “We’ve elected to make an offer to a candidate who was a better fit for the role in question.” The statement is true when you don’t think someone can get along with the hiring manager and it’s true when they’ve blasted opinions via social media that most at your company would find objectionable.
4. Privacy settings have eliminated much of the liability related to social media. By far, the biggest risk to a company is digging into a social media account that is intended for nothing but personal use by a candidate. Facebook is the choice of most candidates when it comes to communicating events in their personal lives, and privacy settings now allow a candidate to wall off what they don’t want the world at large to see. As a result, liability has been greatly reduced during the past two years.
5. Evolution means some species don’t advance. You pay your employees to exercise good judgment related to what, with whom and how they communicate. This requirement is on display daily in your company, and when someone shows they can’t do it, you separate them from the mother ship (that’s called termination, folks).
Even though we’ve grown up dramatically related to our reaction to personal details shared via social media, occasionally someone will share something so egregious you know there’s a judgment issue at play in their DNA. That means they don’t get to play in your company at which time you share the talking points detailed in item No. 3 above.
For HR Managers, it's all about risk vs engagement. So too for candidates. Social media may have started as a convenient way to share your private life with family and friends, but it has always had a risk of what you display, and now that includes prospective bosses.
[Source: article by Kris Dunn, Workforce Management Online, January 2011]
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