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How do you use social media to vet and execute background checks on potential employees?
Do you have a process for how you execute due diligence on job candidates? What sites or services do you use? Any tips or best practices for making this an efficient process would be greatly appreciated.
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8 Answers
Reference checking is an art in itself-and so ought to be done with a lot of diligence!
As reg use of social media, I will second Aaron. I am of the opinion that the candidate must be given an opportunity to verify/validate/vindicate her/his side of the story-especially if the results of the background or reference checks are 'negative'!
Achyut
http://bit.ly/97O0UG
Use of Social Media in Background Checks is really crossing into murkey waters. see Use of the Internet for Recruiting and Screening Can Lead to Lawsuits for Failure to Hire http://bit.ly/dtC9o9 -- the best bet is to leave background and Reference checks to the pros. Individuals who understand the federal and state FCRA (which includes background and reference checks for employment, not only credit)
Note that the EEOC and individual States are also cracking down in these areas
also see Pre-Employment Background Checks What Employers Need to Know http://bit.ly/fyddbu
Karen and Aaron bring up some excellent points about the legal implications of using social media as a background checking mechanism.
That said, it can be useful in determining common contacts for the purpose of obtaining references, and it can be useful for indirectly establishing a person's contributions to a particular industry or body of work.
It seems to me that social media plays a greater role in sourcing candidates than vetting candidates, if only because of the potential legal problems.
Any background check, including Googling someone to search for social media profiles, should only be performed with the expressed written consent of the candidate. While this is not the norm, it is the conservative legal approach that businesses should take until we have a federal legal decision to the contrary. Our laws have not caught up with technology, but ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking it.
I see social media used to validate references, work history etc. Checking their LinkedIn profile, blogs, professional organizations is all part of validating someone is who and what they say they are.
Linkedin is self-service, so the data provided is no better than on a resume. Anyone can claim to work for any company and make themselves into SME with titles, degrees, etc.
Trusting this data without confirmation would be a grave mistake.In spite of this fact, and previous legal implications regarding FCRA, OOE, OFCC, ADA, etc.
My advise, confirm employment, education, criminal history using an independent 3rd party company..I suggest Navicus (my employer). Our checks our unbiased, reducing risk to recruiters, agencies, and corporations.
Mostly employers check social media profiles of potential employees to make a subjective judgment of their behavior and personality. Obviously the information on the social media profiles is not trust worthy but one can only have a partial picture of a person's good or bad behavior.
Faiez
www.backgroundcheckswiki.com
www.dataflowgroup.com
Nipun: There have been several debates in this forum about whether potential employers will or should use social media to assist in checking out job applicants. I think I am seeing a trend toward the affirmative. One suggestion is to match the candidate's resume against their LinkedIn profile. Regards, Eric
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