social media background check Archives

The Pros and Cons of Social Media Background Checks

You are in the process of interviewing candidates for a position and you have narrowed it down to your top 3. Typically you conduct background checks by calling references and verifying previous employment. But in today’s world where everything revolves around social media, it’s no surprise that Human Resources departments are turning to social media platforms to check their candidates’ backgrounds before making any hiring decisions.

Let’s take a look at the Pros and Cons of conducting social media background checks:

Advantages

1. Easy Background Check

Social media screening is a cheap way for a background check, the employer can access them anywhere they are and can make an immediate decision of hiring the candidate. It saves a lot of time to learn about the candidate through Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and does not require any additional money to be spent. Facebook posts are an easy insight into the candidate’s day to day life; Twitter is good to learn about how opinionated they are or about their personal thoughts. On the other hand, LinkedIn is good to learn about their professional makeup. With so many aspects available on the web, it is easy to know about the candidate in a complete way.

2. Eliminating Discrepancies

Social media background checks are a good way to confirm information on a candidate’s resume. Social media sites often provide information on the user’s previous occupations and work history. You can compare to see if there are any discrepancies in the resume they submit for the open position. A candidate may also claim to be an expert in a specific subject matter or have participated in certain volunteering efforts. Most of this information can be confirmed online on their social media platforms.

3. You Learn Who Your Candidate Really Is

Why do people tend to be more open and vulnerable on social media? Whether on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, users often let their guard down and are completely honest. Whatever the reason, this can prove to be beneficial to HR because few candidates feel free to truly be themselves in such a formal and high-pressure environment. During the job interview the candidate tends to put up the best foot in every aspect, hence, it does not provide the complete picture as to how a candidate will behave on a day to day basis at work.

But looking at online profiles can tell you what someone is passionate about or how they treat other people. It can also help you spot red flags. Does your candidate have a habit of ranting about her boss and colleagues online? Does an applicant who seemed friendly in the interview crack racist or sexist jokes on Twitter?

The information revealed by a social media background check is rarely essential to the hiring process, but in some cases, it can help you spot major red flags about a person’s character. Respect for others is always the main agenda for an employer that they look in a candidate and this information can easily be found in social media space. Someone who badmouths a company or spouts off derogatory remarks online is not a good ambassador for your brand and is probably someone you want to pass over when you are hiring.

Disadvantages

Legal Risks

While your social media background screening may seem innocent and purely professional, you could be exposed to potential legal risks in terms of privacy and human rights should your background screening methods be used against you. The legal risks may arise from the public information you gathered about the candidate.

For example, a candidate might list his age, race, religion, or sexual orientation as part of a Facebook profile. Whether you want to admit it or not, subconsciously learning this information about an applicant may affect how you feel about them. Hiring managers are at full liberty to have their own opinions about sensitive political, religious, and lifestyle matters, however, the second those opinions influence a hiring decision, they become discrimination.

Privacy Settings

Most social media sites allow users to adjust the privacy settings on their profiles. Smart candidates are more careful with what they post online. With this knowledge, candidates can easily create a social media profile that works to their advantage and HR has no choice but to accept what can be seen publicly as the truth. Be mindful that what you see is not always what you get.

You Might End Up Wasting Time

One of the biggest problems with social media background checks is that it’s unpredictable. Finding people on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn can be a challenge if you don’t share any connections or mutual friends. And even if you do find your candidate, privacy settings on social platforms can make it impossible to view their posts. Social media background checks can end up being a lot of work for potentially no return.

Conclusion

If you’re thinking about browsing the social media profiles of your top candidates, you need to consider both arguments before deciding.

Always run other types of background checks regardless of your position on social media background checks. Social media can tell you more about a person – from general likes and dislikes to character details – but it can’t replace traditional and trusted background check sources such as criminal screenings and employment verification checks.

If you ever decide to use a candidate’s social media profile for hiring purposes – whether to find contact information or to run a full-blown social media background examination – have someone other than the hiring manager do the work. Looking at a Facebook page can unintentionally reveal too much information – as such, it’s a good idea to have a person uninvolved with the hiring manager look through the applicant’s social accounts and prepare a report of relevant or potentially relevant information. This person can act as a filter, keeping information that might create a bias out of the hands of the hiring manager.

About Us:

We have been mining social media since 2007 for our clients. By utilizing best in class software programs, we offer a service called eChatter.

eChatter works with you to obtain your objectives in a fast, accurate and reliable facet. By keeping our strengthened principals, yet evolving with this industry, we lead in social media monitoring. Since 2007, we have been dedicated to providing our customers with the most authentic data.

We offer:

· Deep Web Scans

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www.e-chatter.net

(866) 703-8238

What’s Your Story?

Social media background checks are useful to learn more about a person. Many services offer high level scans of an individual – some focus only on social sites while others can collect content from across the web.

One of the reasons I find social media background checks so fascinating is that it’s so much more than a scan using one or more software platforms – it’s about building a story, and from my experience, no two searches are the same.

A good social media background check starts with a scan of course – it’s a great starting place to start to paint the picture of who the individual is and what their story looks like. It doesn’t stop there though – additional manual research and result filtering is needed to be able to truly get a picture of the individual you’re researching.

In the time we have conducted social media background checks, I’ve learned many things:

Social media research for individuals is so interesting. By collecting content created by or about an individual, you can really start to get an idea of what the person is like without ever meeting them.

Individual background checks for some industries, such as Human Resources, are a bit different. When it comes to other industries, such as investigations or insurance research, it’s much more robust and, in my opinion, interesting.

No software is perfect. We utilize a suite of software programs for this very reason. We use one program as our “base” but rely on the others to fill in the blanks. The final part of our research is manual – corroborating results found and connecting some dots outside of the software programs is vital to a detailed, valuable report.

A search is only as good as the information provided. It’s amazing how much you find about someone given very little information. However, conducting a thorough search requires much more information than a first name, last name, and city of residence. The more information provided, the better the results.

Conducting social media background checks has been a favorite part of the work I do. Some stories are happy ones, while others have saddened me greatly. Either way, I know that we are helping our clients get a better understanding of the people and cases they are investigating, one story at a time.

Social Media in Court: A Look Back at Casey Anthony & Scott Peterson

I’ve often wondered what the OJ Simpson trial would have looked like had social media been a “thing” at the time – that was an extremely high profile case that would have likely blown up social media.

The two high profile cases that were “firsts” really as far as the boom of social media include the Casey Anthony case, the young woman acquitted in her toddler’s death in 2007 and Scott Peterson, who is currently on death row for the death of his wife and unborn son in 2002. Both trials stuck with me, partly because I kept tabs on both trials, especially the Casey Anthony case, where the public had full view of the search for Caylee, the videos of the conversations between family members, and the day to day trial news.

From a legal perspective, these cases are interesting for another reason – both were influenced by social media, even though it was in its infancy at the time. Thinking back to those trials and looking at how impactful social media has (and will) become in court is fascinating.

In the Casey Anthony case, the defense lawyer hired a jury consultant who monitored social media to gauge perception and, more interestingly, help the lawyer as he presented his case. After the trial was over, it came out that the trial consultant actually monitored the online conversation and encouraged Casey’s lawyer to go easier on his questioning of Casey’s father, George. The online sentiment was negative, and showed that the public felt he was being too harsh on the father. The lawyer listened and changed his game plan. According to Amy Singer, the jury consultant, “Social media was the difference between winning and losing.”

Scott Peterson’s case was a bit different. Social media was still very new, and wasn’t likely used as it was in the Casey Anthony trial. However, on recently watching a show that recapped this case, it came out that there is an appeal set to expire at the end of the year. One of the reasons for the appeal? A juror may have lied during voir dire, which they can claim compromised the trial. If the appeal holds, it will be a major event. Personally, I don’t think it will be an issue, but stranger things have happened. Imagine if social media monitoring were prominent back then – this may have been easily uncovered and given the defense one less reason to try to appeal.

So, how has social media evolved since then?

There is a wealth of information that can be taken from social media, and it is being used more and more by investigators, lawyers, and jury consultants. I’d still consider it in its infancy, but I fully expect this will be commonplace across the board in the next three to five years.

In case you’re having a hard time keeping up, here are some ways social media is being used in the legal industry:

Social media background checks/investigations: used as a source of supporting information, there are now pretty in depth social media background checks available to lawyers and investigators. The name is slightly misleading though – while some providers do only focus on social media, most are starting to provide a variety of content from all public facing online sources. These can be used for a lawyer’s client, a defendant or plaintiff, or anyone tied to a case.

Voir dire: In the Scott Peterson case, having a way to run quick online checks during the jury selection process may have uncovered the juror’s past and immediately made her ineligible to serve as a juror. Some states allow for a list of potential jurors to be available prior to voir dire, and others do not. In either case, social media/online research services are available for this purpose.

Jury monitoring: Keeping jurors from posting to online sites during a trial can be a tricky process. They are given the instructions at the onset of the trial, but how can you ensure they are adhering to it? Using social media monitoring of the individuals sitting on the jury can be beneficial, as can geolocating monitoring. Put a fence around the courthouse, a hotel if the jury is sequestered, and and monitor online content being posted throughout the trial.

Witness/evidence content for trial: People now serve as novice journalists – how often do we see a situation unfold and it’s followed by several witness accounts, posts, and videos? This can be cruical information for a trial or case. By utilizing a service that will scan for mentions of the incident as well as location based monitoring that can go back to a recent time when the incident happened, it may allow lawyers and investigators to find & identify witnesses or obtain details/video that will help immensely.

This is still a new technology as far as the legal/investigative industry is concerned, and the “rules of the game” are still being defined and made into law. However, this cannot be overlooked – the content that you may uncover can be the one thing to help win your case.

Lawyers: Don’t Be Sideswiped By Social Media

When taking on a new client, one of the first things that is done during the interview/discovery process is asking your client about his/her social media accounts and habits. It’s good to be aware of what they have online, as this can easily be used as evidence if the case goes to trial.

Your new client may or may not be totally forthcoming with this information; your hope is that they disclose as much as possible so you can help them. But what if they’re not completely aware of what’s online about them, either posted by others or an account created years ago that has been long forgotten?

This is where a strong social media background check is needed. Utilizing such a service can help you uncover any public facing online content surrounding an individual or group of individuals. What does a social media background check tell you?

- A full scope of your client’s social media/online presence – pull any public facing information so you know what’s out there and what may need to be done to “clean up” a social account if necessary

- Uncover potentially damning information and/or accounts your client has forgotten about that may be relevant to their case

- If a client’s situation may result in a trial, it’s good to expand the social media background check to those involved in the case, whether it’s witnesses, a plaintiff/defendant, or other key players. The more you know ahead of time, the better prepared you will be.

When thinking about a social media background check, most people automatically think of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. However, a background check scans all of the internet and can find additional information, such as:

- Participation in online forums/message boards

- Blogs or comments written by your client on blogs or in response to online articles

- Amazon wish lists (if public)

- News articles/online public notices specific to your client, which may include information about past legal issues

- Content that other people have posted about your client

Social media can be invaluable when helping a client. It can also lead to surprises you don’t want to find out once it’s too late. Adding a social media background check to your practice can help uncover useful information to best serve your client – after all, who wants to get sideswiped?

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.