How to Ethically Screen Candidates on Facebook

How to Ethically Screen Candidates on Facebook 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. akkencloud.com has  put together this infographic covering    how recruiters are using social media to screen potential candidates, what information they are gathering and how to comply with Facebook regulations. 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 dont use social media for screening dont 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. Learn more below! [Image Credit: Shutterstock]