With over a billion users, Facebook makes a great tool for sourcing and screening candidates. However for a lot of people it is a platform that they like to reserve purely for personal use and therefore may find it slightly intrusive for a recruiter to check them out on the platform.
Someones Facebook profile can reveal a lot about them as a person and could provide recruiters with information that could be significant in assessing the candidates suitability for a role. Nonetheless it is important that recruiters adhere to the legalities surrounding candidate screening on Facebook.
Recruiting on Facebook
- 84% of job seekers have a Facebook profile.
- 54% of organisations use Facebook to recruit.
- Over 18.4 million applicants found a job on Facebook.
How does social media affect hiring?
- 43% of employers research candidates online and a further 12% intend to start.
- 33% of recruiters found information on Facebook that made them more likely to hire a candidate.
- Recruiters often recommend a candidate for a job based on social media, for reasons such as culture fit, communication skills and a professional personal brand.
How can a candidates behaviour on Facebook affect their hire-ability?
- 46% of candidates were rejected because of inappropriate content on their Facebook profile.
- 36% were rejected for bad mouthing a former/current employer or colleague.
- Links to drugs and criminal activity, poor communication skills and lies about qualifications were also reasons candidates were rejected during screening.
How to make sure screening is ethical
- 57% of companies have no policy in place for using Facebook to screen candidates and of companies who don’t use social media for screening don’t because of the legal risks attached.
- Only look at information that is shared to the public.
- If you make a hiring decision based on information found on Facebook be sure to print if off in case it is later deleted.
- Inform applicants that information on social media will be considered in the hiring process.