Social Media Screening: A Must for Employers or a Breach of Privacy?
It should not come as a surprise to employees and job applicants that employers are conducting social media screening on current employees and job applicants. However, this practice is still a debated topic: some feel it’s necessary, while others consider it to be an invasion of the employee or applicant’s privacy.
How you feel about this probably depends on which viewpoint you’re looking at. If you’re the employer, you’ll see it as a necessity. As mentioned by Indeed, an employment website for job listings, “Employers use social media background checks to learn about candidates as a person, including how they conduct themselves in public and any comments they have made about their professional history. They can indicate a candidate’s demeanor and give employers a holistic view of how they might fit in with their company’s workplace culture.”
However, if you’re an applicant or an employee, and your future with the company is in danger because of what you post on social media, the practice can be disconcerting. According to a CareerBuilder survey conducted in 2018, 70% of employers conduct social media screenings and 54% have rejected applicants because of what they post on their social media accounts. These figures are alarming for employees and candidates who are active on social media.
Let’s break down both sides and check the merits of each.
The Case for Social Media Screening
1. Insight into the Candidate’s Character Culture Fit: Social media profiles can provide employers with an idea about the candidate’s interests, values, and behavior outside of the workplace. They can use what they glean from social media if the applicant aligns with company culture. For example, an applicant is applying for a customer service position, but their Twitter feed is full of rants complaining about the services they receive. How will they be effective customer service representatives if they’re short-tempered and unsympathetic?
2. Avoiding Potential Red Flags: Business News Daily mentioned in this post that some companies do not have the resources to hire a third party to conduct background checks and are doing social media screening to avoid candidates who are walking and breathing red flags. Employers can weed out applicants who display troubling behavior on social media, such as posting offensive content, cyberbullying others, or other disturbing conduct that can affect the company’s image or the workplace environment.
3. Ensuring Brand Safety: For companies involved in public-facing industries like media, PR and marketing, social media presence can be a significant factor. Employers may want to ensure their employees and potential hires won’t damage their image with inappropriate online presence. The same goes for schools, universities, and other educational institutions looking to hire teachers, professors, instructors, and trainers. These academic establishments need to make sure their staff are conducting themselves professionally at all times, even in what they post on social media.
The Concerns Against Social Media Screening
1. Invasion of Privacy: Many employees and job applicants argue that screening their social media accounts violates their privacy since what they post on social media is not always a reflection of their professional demeanor.
2. Legal and Ethical Risks: Applicants and employees are protected from discrimination with legal limitations. Employers may inadvertently discover information such as religion or sexual orientation from a potential hire’s social media account, which could lead to unconscious bias. In addition, according to Harvard Business Review, hiring managers are also legally prohibited from using what they see on social media to rule out a candidate. Studies have also shown that social media presence is not indicative of a potential hire’s work performance.
3. False Representation: Social media can sometimes present an inaccurate view of a person’s character. For example, a person might get tagged in a photo with people drunk and wasted at a club, even though they don’t drink and were simply there as the designated driver. This could negatively impact their job application for a role like a lifeguard, where they need to be sober, causing the employer or hiring manager to make unfair assumptions based on the post.
Conclusion
Social media screening can provide valuable insight but must be used with caution. Employers and hiring managers should consider limiting the scope of these checks to avoid accusations of bias and prevent discrimination against potential hires.
A balanced approach could involve only checking information that is made public and clearly communicating social media policies to employees and job applicants to avoid crossing boundaries.
