Employers already know it’s a good idea to check job candidates’ Facebook pages to make sure there aren’t any horrible red flags there. The reddest flags for most employers seem to be drugs, drinking, badmouthing former employers, and lying about one’s qualifications. But there’s another good reason for checking out a candidate’s Facebook page before inviting them in for an interview: it may be a fairly accurate reflection of how good they’ll be at the job.
That’s the conclusion in a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology last month. The researchers hired HR types to rate hundreds of college students’ Facebook pages according to how employable they seemed.
One of the study author’s, Don Kluemper, of Northern Illinois University says.
“We asked them to form impressions of a candidate based solely on their Facebook page.”
This involved looking at what was publicly available on those pages (photos, status updates, and conversations with friends) and then assigning each person a score for a number of qualities important to being a good employee, such as their degree of emotionally stability, conscientiousness, extroversion, intellectual curiosity and agreeableness. (In other words, will they flip out on you, care about completing tasks, be fun to work with, be creative in problem solving, and be willing to kiss up when necessary?) The review took about five to ten minutes per profile.
Six months later, the researchers got in touch with their guinea pigs’ employers to ask about their job performances. Unfortunately, of the over 500 guinea pigs, just 56 of the employers responded. So the sample is small, but the researchers found a strong correlation between those employers’ reviews and the employability predictions they had made based on folks’ profile pages.
I asked Kluemper about the “personality red flags” that their reviewers looked for. He was a little vague but said that a person with obvious mood swings, who is overly emotional in their postings would not be an attractive candidate. Meanwhile, a person with a lot of Facebook friends who takes a lot of crazy photos would be rated as extroverted and friendly — which are attractive qualities in a candidate.
Key takeaway for hiring employers: The Facebook page is the first interview; if you don’t like a person there, you probably won’t like working with them. The bad news for employers, though, who are hoping to take the Facebook shortcut Kluemper said.
“So many more profiles are restricted in what the public can access.”
Given the small sample size for that first study, I was more impressed by the second. In the second study, the researchers did a similar assessment of students’ Facebook selves and also had the students take personality and IQ tests. Then, instead of following up with employers, they turned to students’ transcripts. Kluemper says.
“We were able to better predict a student’s academic success based on their Facebook page than on the cognitive tests.”
(Most universities claim they don’t stalk applicants on social networking sites during the admissions process. Maybe they should?)
Of course, there are some legal questions to think about before jumping into someone’s Facebook page. Employers can discriminate against potential employees who seem like bummers based on their Wall postings and interests, but will get into trouble if what the Facebook user has said about their religious views affects the hiring process.
COMMENTARY: For quite a while I have been warning my readers about the dangers of posting or saying offensive things on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Unless you make your Facebook or Twitter page private, you are an open book, and whatever you post on your social network page, could come back to haunt you, no matter how qualified you may be for the job.
The addition of Facebook's Timeline is going to be a goldmine for employers because it makes it much easier for an employer to dig up dirt you may have long forgotten about. If you've said some derogatory things about an opposing political party or candidate, a former employer or co-worker, or even an ex-girlfriend or spouse, even the boss' favorite sports team, this can be viewed very negatively by employers.
Law enforcement organizations and government agencies like the FBI, NSA and the CIA are actively involved and working closely with many of the major social networks to conduct investigations, gather evidence and track down criminals and terrorists. Much of this investigation and data gathering is done under the auspices of the Patriot Act in the interest of national security, so in special circumstances they may not be required to obtain a subpoena to access your private Facebook or Twitter account. The former Director of the CIA testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee about the billions Facebook had saved the agency. The director said with a smile on his face,
"After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were astounded that so many people would willingly publicize where they lived, their religious and political views, alphabetize a list of all their friends' personal email addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, and even status updates of what they were doing moment-to-moment. It is truly a dream come true for the CIA."
Here, checkout the YouTube video yourself.
To assist employers in their hiring decisions, many employers are now using what I call "professional social media snooping" firms to scour the internet to find out what you say and post online, particularly on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and others. In a blog post dated October 3, 2010, I profiled Social Intelligence Corporation, one of these social media snoopers, and at that time called it a "creepy startup" and "truly scary" company.
Apparently consumers hurt by this companies activities filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), claiming they were in violation of the Federal Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1996, 2004 with amendments there to.
On May 9, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission ruled on behalf of Social Intelligence Corp claiming that they were not in violation of the Federal Credit Reporting Act. This effectively gave Social Intellignece Corporation the legality to provide social media consumer reports to employers conducting background checks on prospective employees.
On February 3, 2012, I told you about the growing trend by employers to use social media snooping firms to help employers screen employees through their social media behaviors. It's not just a U.S. trend, employers all over the world are now using social media snooping firms. More than half of my readers are from countries outside the U.S., so you should be aware of this.
According to Social Intelligence Corp. CEO Max Drucker, the company focuses on screening social media profiles for the usual suspects -- racist remarks, sexually explicit content, pictures with guns, knives, or other weapons, and other illegal behavior (think bongs).
There are some limits on how employers may use archived social media content, however. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, companies are required to tell prospective employees (or, say, credit applicants) that they are going to perform background check and obtain their permission to do so. Employers are also required by law to tell the applicant about any damaging information they find online.
The majority of my readers probably have nothing to worry about, but if you have a previous felony conviction, been fired for cause, previously lost your job due to a layoff, and you voiced your anger online, you have a lot to risk. By some estimates, as many as 40% of longterm unemployed may be in limbo and simply unemployable because of their online social media behaviors. Social media snooping firms have already expanded into the insurance industry. Their reports could cause you to lose your health or life insurance coverage or prevent you from obtaining insurance coverage. If you have any experience or information about the activities of these snoopers, post it on my blog, or shoot me an email. I have a feeling we have just scratched the surface.
Courtesy of an article dated March 5, 2012 appearing in Forbes
Comments