Employ e r’ s Toolb ox :
Social Media as a Screen in Recruiting
by Douglas H. Duerr
H
iring the right person is hard. In
the hospitality industry, where
turnover is traditionally high,
you would think that over time,
because you have so many “opportunities”to hire, you would eventually learn
through experience, how to hire the
right person every time. Instead, with the
lawyers and human resources professionals telling you what you cannot ask
prospective applicants, it is becoming
harder than ever to really find out much
about the person sitting across from you
in the interview—someone who is doing
their best to make themselves look good
enough to you to get hired.
In this environment, it might be
tempting to turn to the treasure trove of
information available about applicants
that can be found in social media. (In fact,
have you already turned to social media
for recruiting?) In their tweets, Facebook®
postings, Instagram® posts, Pinterest®
posts, Tinder® messages, and the like,
individuals reveal a lot of information
about themselves—information that can
help you
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decide whether the applicant has the
same ideas and beliefs regarding attendance, timeliness, customer service and
work ethic that your organization does.
Studies have shown that hiring managers
have considered social media information in making hiring decisions and have
rejected applicants based on what they
found. Should you do the same?
First, you need to check your state’s
laws. A number of states have laws on
the books prohibiting employers from
obtaining certain information from social
media and from requiring employees (or
applicants) to provide passwords, other
login information, or access to social
media sites. Even if your state does not
prohibit you from requiring applicants
to open up their social media accounts
to you, should you check out an applicant’s social media presence and, to
be complete, require them to give you
access to“private”posts? Keep in mind
that requiring applicants to do so may
discourage
good
applicants
from applying (or
continuing the
application process)
because of the
perceived invasion
of privacy. Would you turn over your
passwords?
Second, if you do social media
research on an applicant, be careful what
you do. If you use social media sites to
go beyond an applicant’s application
and/or resume, you may be opening a
Pandora’s box full of information about
an applicant’s status in certain protected
categories. For example, you may discover
an applicant’s personal attributes such as
race, gender, age, marital status, medical
conditions, association with members of
different races or family members with
disabilities, religion, pregnancy status,
sexual orientation, disability, criminal
history and political affiliation. All of these
characteristics may be protected categories
under federal or state law. While you can
certainly “discover”some of these characteristics in an interview, it is unlikely that
you would discover many
beyond race, sex, color