“Should recruiters consider online information when making hiring decisions”;
Introduction
This paper will discuss whether it is a good idea for recruiters to base their decisions on who to hire – in addition to information provided directly by the applicants in their CV, motivation letter and interview – on information they find about applicants online. That so-called social recruiting is a buzz term used in the HR-world. It can be defined as “Harnessing the evolution of Web 2.0 technologies and social media tools to communicate, engage, inform, and recruit our future talent” (Jacobs 2009).
Firstly, three arguments in favor of social recruiting will be conveyed. One positive effect of social media as a recruitment tool is that a company can save time and money. Furthermore, social media presents an opportunity for extra reach of passive candidates and a company can check whether a person fits the company’s culture.
Secondly, this paper considers three risks of using social media to recruit. The biggest risk is that candidates can easily be discriminated. Another pitfall is that the information on social media can be inaccurate. Moreover, privacy issues yet remain to be discussed.
Finally, the self-reflection will clarify our final thoughts on the use of social media as a recruitment tool.
Arguments pro
Argument 1: cost and time savings
Argument 2: reaching passive candidates
In this paragraph, we would like to discuss another benefit of social recruitment. As Online Social Network sites has gained importance over years, organizations use these sites to boost their brand-awareness, sales, and also as a tool for the recruitment process.
First, human resource managers use social media to identify passive job-seekers. Passive job-seekers use these social network sites to indicate their interest and availability for certain job positions and occupations. Beside this, companies could observe these passive candidates and their social environment through their contributions to blogs and online communities, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. With access to these social sites, the recruiter can measure a person’s creativity, job-related interests, and learn about their job experiences. This way, an employer knows whether the applicant has the right skills for the company’s job description and whether he fits in the company’s culture. This opportunity will be discussed in more detail in the next paragraph.
Secondly, since they are often considered to be well-qualified and solid employees, businesses hire big data analysts who have specialist and niche capabilities. Furthermore, these analysts assist them in reaching out to passive candidates before their competitors do, thus giving them a distinct edge in the marketplace. The interest in social recruiting should grow as recruiters experience higher rates of successful hiring via social media and the candidate quality has improved.
Argument 3: fitting the company’s culture
Arguments contra
Argument 1: discrimination, equality and diversity in applicant pool
Generally speaking, the group of applicants responding to online job offers may be more limited than that which replies to more traditional recruitment processes. This may have implications in terms of discrimination and diversity of the applicant pool.
Participation through the internet seems to be attractive to a certain population also known as Generation Y. The pool is likely to be younger, white males who are more highly educated and already in employment within the sector. Think about a typical LinkedIn profile. Research has shown that 80% of LinkedIn users are white and 30% are at director or manager level.
The use of the internet or social media as a sole recruitment tool excludes a lot of jobseekers. First of all, demographic differences may determine who has a webpage or profile and who hasn’t. Some groups may be less likely to have access to computers and the internet and thus be less likely to access social networking websites. Using social media to alert potential candidates to vacancies could also indirectly discriminate against groups which are under-represented in a targeted campaign strategy. Third, you could also easily be excluding jobseekers who are not IT-literate. Typically older generations are less IT-literate or may not have access to computers at all, but they could be experts on their job as they have a lot of experience. When accidentally excluding too many applicants over the age of 40, organizations could be violating civil rights laws. Protected classes and discrimination laws vary by country.
When employers screen social networking sites, they are likely to gain a range of information about candidates, including sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age and political views, making it easy for rejected candidates to claim unfair discrimination. While good practice in hiring practices recommends that information on such characteristics should be hidden – at least at the early stages of the selection process – the opportunity for employers to carry out informal online searches provides an easy way of circumventing these standards. Through pictures and comments, the recruiter can also learn the candidate’s interaction in social situations. All information which can potentially be viewed by the recruiter could create a negative impression or worse a tendency to discriminate against the potential candidates.
The fact that not everybody has a profile or webpage on the internet and given the diversity of information about individuals available on social networking sites, makes it difficult to fairly compare the candidates.
Argument 2: accuracy of information
In this paragraph, we would like to take a closer look at another issue of social media recruiting, more precisely the accuracy of information that the recruiters find online. It is very difficult and even impossible to verify whether the information obtained is true. This can be very costly for the organization since there is a risk on attracting the wrong applicants but also the risk on missing out on great candidates.
Firstly, because of the social desirability or high levels of self-monitoring, job-seekers might change and distort the information they share on social network websites. Mostly it is because the applicants do not want their potential employer to see them in an awkward or odd situation. It is also difficult to distinguish what information is real and what is not. Some applicants give inaccurate information about their working experiences and their attained degrees. It is important to know that the information shared on social network websites might not reflect what the applicant will be as an employee. This can lead to trust issues as some employers still have problems on trusting the use of social media as a recruitment tool. Moreover, some recruiters or Human Resource managers are older and the use of social media is still quite new to them, which can lead to incorrectly usage.
Secondly, it is possible that some recruiters make use of old or inaccurate information to discard the candidates, while they may be suitable for the job. Sometimes people also forget to clean up their old and unused social network profiles which can represent a different phase in their life. So employers should look at company-related content and at the context of some pictures or posts. As they give greater weight to negative factors when they evaluate, recruiters tend to screen out rather to screen in applicants. When employers eliminate candidates based on false information, they may face legal challenges when it is obtained without their knowledge. 1 of 3 employers have rejected applicants based on information that they found online, but is the used information correct and relevant? 78% recruiters disapprove of references to using illegal drugs and 67% react negatively on posts of sexual nature.
In addition to these concerns, some candidates do not make their profile publicly available because they do not believe in social media recruiting or simply because some they do not have a social network account. Therefore, recruiters cannot see the relevant content. Recruiters should also be aware of imitation accounts or mistaken identities such as pranksters e.g. a young man in a bar left his mobile with his friends when he goes to the bathroom. His friends used this moment to send silly ‘tweets’ in his name.
Argument 3: privacy and legal issues
Screening potential candidates online can cause some issues, the issues on which we would like to zoom in on in this paragraph are privacy or legal issues.
First issue from an ethical point of view, especially concerning the job-seekers, is the problem with blurring the lines between professional and personal information. Recruiters can obtain information via various social networking sites, but ethically this may be classed as an invasion of applicants’ privacy. Going through online information and personal photos can sometimes cross the line, especially if this is carried out without their consent or knowledge, and can lead to prejudices. Individuals, who are in this case job-seekers, think that they are communicating with a relatively small circle of family and friends and they intend their communications only for that small circle whilst recruiters use this personal shared information for other purposes. The open nature of online social networks deprives them of meaningful rights to privacy for information to share. An example that contributes to these findings is a US survey. The researchers found that the most common reasons for rejecting candidates were based on lifestyle rather than employment-related information. E.g. 53% of HR-managers said that provocative or inappropriate photographs were the reason to turn down a candidate.
Second issue is a problem form the legal point of view. One problem of social networking site is that they allow the potential of individual biases to affect hiring and screening decisions. Currently, employers are not required to disclose what information was used in making screening decisions, which may allow managers to discriminate against candidates. The regulation in Europe counters this problems in the EU 1995 Data Protection Directive, which restricts commercial use of personal data, and ruled that social networks are also subject to this regulation. Internet screening of applicants requires explicit permission according to the Directive. Using online information can also cause a problem for companies, when an employer finds negative information or inappropriate behavior of an applicant and chooses to ignore the issue and hire the job-seeker anyway, than the employer could be sued for negligent hiring if the employee later harms a third party such as a customer, etc. But most courts consider the right to privacy binary: what is not kept secret is not considered private. For employers it can be a legal minefield. This minefield can be avoided by adopting certain best practices e.g. when vetting job applications online, limit inquiries to publicly-available information and consider only information that relates to legitimate business needs. A best practice that is potentially violated is that recruiters collect standardized information for all applicants, this will be much harder to achieve when screening online because online the amount of available information varies between the individual candidates.
References:
• Segal, J.B. (2014). Social media use in hiring: assessing the risks.