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Social Media Background Checks: Modern Day Job Screening [Chart]

I was listening to a radio show the other day while I was working, and as they were talking about the role of social media in the hiring process, the guest

I was listening to a radio show the other day while I was working, and as they were talking about the role of social media in the hiring process, the guest

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.bitrebels.com

How to Use Social Employment Background Checks

Employers want to use every tool at their disposal for vetting potential employees – social media is one area that is more “gray” and, while HR departments realize its value, they have many questions about its use, and how to go about vetting a candidate socially.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently published a study around the topic of social media’s use for employment screenings and recruitment. Key findings show that:

43% state that they have used social media research or online searches during the screening/vetting process.

36% have disqualified a potential candidate based on something found in an online search or in a public social media site.

Rob Walker, The Workologist columnist in the New York Times responded to a question on how HR departments can manage social media for employment screening. The response explains it very simply – HR departments should make use of what’s available, and be cautious, but not overly cautious.

Some of the top concerns HR departments have when it comes to using social media as a screening tool include:

Not being able to “unsee” information that they shouldn’t in order to be compliant (ie age, race, marital status, etc), that is easily found when looking at a person’s social media profile

How to go about incorporating social media research – what’s the best method, at what point in the process should this be done, etc?

These concerns may be keeping HR departments from jumping into the social media arena, and they may be missing vital information to help with the decision making process. There are many ways that concerns can easily be addressed.

Use a formal social media research program – whether it’s an outsource or an internal program, using a formal program or software geared toward HR can go a long way. For one, it will be compliant with state and federal laws with regard to employment; there is no chance to see things that you shouldn’t, as that type of information is stripped from the search results. Additionally, a third party vendor will add credibility to the research, which will be a benefit should issues ever arise.

Only use public information – don’t try “friending” or connecting with potential candidates. Privacy settings help those who want to keep some of their social activity from the public arena, and that needs to be respected. A strong social media program only looks at public data – if information is uncovered by viewing someone’s Facebook content that you’re “friends” with, there is a chance that the person has their settings to only show content to their friend list – it is not something that a standard social media search would uncover, so it’s off limits to you.

Use it at the right time – while that “right time” may vary and is still unclear at this point, deciding when to use it and being consistent will help with your strategy. Using social media research as a final tool, after the first round of interviews perhaps, will be helpful in learning more about the serious candidates. It’s good to have conversations within your company to determine which point in the process is best prior to rolling it out. Consistently will not only help make the process more efficient, but may help if there is ever a question of legality/discrimination brought up.

The concept of incorporating social media research into employment background checks is not new, but it is being seen more and more as a valuable tool for HR departments. I’m anticipating that this time next year we’ll be seeing it as a standard part of any employment screening. Learning now and developing a solid strategy will give your company the edge in making good hiring decisions.

Is Uber Doing Enough To Screen Drivers?

Uber has been making news recently, as their background screening policy has come under fire. They recently settled two class action lawsuits regarding their additional “Safe Rides Fee.” The issue wasn’t necessarily the additional fee (which will not go away, but will be changed to a “booking fee”), which Uber states is necessary to offset the costs of the background checks done on drivers and the 24/7 support they provide. Part of the issue was the language used; they referred to the background checks as “industry leading” and perhaps misled customers to believe that their background checks were more involved or in depth than others.

This has found to be not entirely true, as other news had circulated over the summer where four Uber drivers were found to have criminal records, ones that would have prevented them from becoming employed as a taxi driver in Los Angeles, leaving some to wonder how thorough their checks are.

Uber and other companies, such as Lyft, have been game changers in the taxi/rideshare industry. Because the business model is so different than a standard taxi service, it is more important than ever to ensure that drivers are thoroughly screened, and references to ‘industry leading’ background checks should be fully disclosed to give customers a peace of mind when using these services.

Upon review, it appears that Uber is utilizing a strong software program to conduct background checks, including social security confirmation, driving history, criminal records, and a credit check to name a few. Like most companies, adding a social media background check would provide an additional layer of security and potentially uncover issues that may not be found through traditional background checks.

Social media background checks have become more sophisticated and detailed than merely running a Google Search on an individual. Like standard background checks, they are FCRA compliant and provide detailed history of an individual from online resources.

While these new ride sharing programs are gaining steam and providing a popular option for those seeking services, it is more important than ever for these companies to provide a rock solid background check and be transparent with their customers as to what they are doing to keep riders safe. While this will not solve 100% of the issues, a thorough background check of all angles, both standard and online, is a good proactive means to providing the highest quality drivers to their customers.

Hiring? Here’s a Reason To Use a Formal Monitoring Service

It’s no surprise that hiring managers are turning to social media when making hiring decisions; in fact, research indicates that at least half of hiring managers will use social media research. Job candidates are encouraged to clean up their public facing social media content when job seeking, and with good reason.

However, before your firm takes to social media research to further vet potential candidates, it’s important to have the right safeguards in place to be sure that your methods are not controversial or lead to problems later on.

I recently came across a study that looked at discrimination in hiring practices, specifically related to social media research. Carnegie Mellon conducted a study to look at such discrimination. The article explains the study as follows:

“Alessandro Acquisti and Christina M. Fong of Carnegie Mellon University recently conducted a large-scale field experiment about social media use in hiring. First they created Facebook profiles for fictional job candidates, striving to make them identical, except for indications of religious affiliation (listed as Christian or Muslim) or sexuality (gay versus straight). Next they submitted applications for these fictional job candidates to more than 4,000 employers. These did not indicate religious affiliation or sexuality. The only way to determine the candidates’ religious preference or sexual orientation was to search for and examine their Facebook profiles.

About 33% of the companies in the sample seem to have examined the candidates’ social media profiles. The researchers found no statistically significant discrimination against gay candidates. They did, however, find that employers in Republican areas of the United States (based on election results) exhibited significant bias when extending interview invitations — against Muslim applicants, and in favor of Christian applicants. In the 10 states with the highest percentage of votes for the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, only about 2% of the Muslim applicants were invited for interviews, compared with about 17% of the Christian applicants.”

While this is one study, the article states that these statistics fall in line with other similar studies.

It’s a well known fact that factors such as race, religion, and marital status cannot be used in consideration of a potential employee; I don’t think that hiring managers seek out this information, but do come across it when conducting basic social media research, which typically includes a Google search or even searching for a candidate on Facebook. However, when doing so, one cannot “unsee” this type of information, and it is very difficult to prove that the specific information that cannot be used for consideration wasn’t.

So, what’s a hiring manager to do?

Simply put, hiring managers need to turn to third party services for such social media research, or social media background checks as they’re often referred to. The background checks conducted by third party vendors have built in benefits that many do not even consider when using social media to research candidates, such as:

The searches are more comprehensive than a typical Google search: it takes a lot of time to manually research a person using Google, and even longer to cross reference potential content that may be tied to a candidate, or tied to someone with a similar name. The programs used for third party services is intuitive, deep, and efficient in determining identity.
You don’t see what you’re not supposed to: formal social media background checks are compliant with the FCRA, and will not provide content that falls within protected data. There is no opportunity to “see” something that shouldn’t been seen. The good news is that, should hiring practices be questioned, it will be much easier to prove that the data used in the decision making process was compliant.
A third party source creates a layer of protection: using a third party vendor for social media background checks can give weight to the social content collected and used as part of the hiring process. By showing that it is an independent source, it can be helpful in protecting the company with regard to its hiring practices.

Social media content is a valuable tool in ensuring you hire the right people; the right hiring decisions lead to the strongest team. It’s wise to be as cautious as possible to avoid any potential issues, and using a third party source might be the best bet for your hiring managers to take advantage of.

Visa Waiver Travel Program Adds Social Media Check

It looks like the government is starting to make use of social media content in a proactive manner. They have been quietly rolling out a new program for the visa waiver travelers to try to add a layer of screening prior to arriving in the US. If you’re not aware, those traveling using a visa waiver have the right to stay in the US for up to 90 days without needing a visa.

With this new program, travelers are being asked to provide their user names for any social sites they may use. They are not asking for passwords or access to any private information. This is optional and whether or not a person provides this information has no bearing on their acceptance to enter the country.

According to a recent news article, the ACLU and other advocacy groups are taking issue with this too, stating that it may be used against some in a specific demographic, such as Muslims, and will increase their chances of not being able to enter the country.

The ACLU opposes this, stating this serves as “gateways into an enormous amount of [users’] online expression and associations, which can reflect highly sensitive information about that person’s opinions, beliefs, identity and community.”

Similarly, Access Now, a group advocating for users’ digital rights, shared this sentiment: “The choice to hand over this information is technically voluntary,” he said. “But the process to enter the U.S. is confusing, and it’s likely that most visitors will fill out the card completely rather than risk additional questions from intimidating, uniformed officers — the same officers who will decide which of your jokes are funny and which ones make you a security risk.”

I tend to disagree. By asking travelers to provide this information, it will expedite the screening process. If this information isn’t easily available, the government may need to conduct social media research in another format, which could be more time consuming and likely expensive.

I believe this is a good measure, at least at a start, to try to use social media as a screening tool. Obviously people can lie, or not share all of their social site usage, or just not complete it at all, but my hope is that those who want to travel to the United States will comply with this new request. After all, if they have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be a problem. Further, since the only content that can be obtained is public facing anyway, it is already visible to those who wish to find it.

This appears to be a simple start to trying to better screen people entering the country. It is simplistic though and somewhat basic, and will only minimally help, because those likely to comply with this are not the threats the government is looking for. However, it is a good start and is a program that can be fleshed out over time to better protect us.