Employment Suitability Screening Using Social Media


Hey Cats,

When you visit a coffee shop, fast food restaurant, or any popular hangout, you'll likely find people
taking selfies, browsing through social media applications, and anything and everything else related
to social media use. 

It seems like everyone has a social media account, if not multiple. Just as Facebook, YouTube,
Instagram, Snapchat and company are popular among individuals, these platforms are all but
worldwide in the collective hands of businesses and organizations. 

Entities utilize social media to provide consumers with customer service, to advertise their offerings
and brand names, and - although this lattermost utilization is the least common of the three - screen
employment candidates using their social media presences.

Let's touch over several positives and downsides of social media screening, as well as things
employers should be mindful of prior to hiring or firing candidates through social media platforms. 





Background Checks Through Social Media Are Far Cheaper Than Traditional Means

Many employers, especially those that ask financial or social responsibilities of their employees,
request background checks on applicants on a regular basis. Even employees that don't have direct
responsibilities of taking care of money or children, like janitors, for example, are asked to submit to
background checks if they work in government buildings, on city- or state-owned campuses, or even
remotely near children, or physically or mentally disabled individuals. 

While it's never a good idea to replace full-fledged, trustworthy background checks with less
-comprehensive social media checks, uncovering proverbial dirt on such candidates' social media
profiles can effectively save employers money by not having to jump directly to expensive background
checks.

Even if your business trusts professional social media screening service providers like Fama, for
example, you'll save loads of money in comparison to relying only on professional, full-fledged
background checks. 



Social Media Screens Provide Employers with Glimpses of Their Informal, Non-Official Lives

Background checks, resumes, and employer references only provide employers with tastes of their
professional lives, not who they are outside of the workplace. By looking to applicants' social media
profiles, employers are able to uncover personal information that would never turn up on background
checks, self-submitted resumes, or through asking previous employers of applicants' behaviors and
actions in the workplace. 

Attempting to follow people in real life isn't only highly inappropriate, but provides such followers
with limited, restricted views of who applicants really are. Looking to social media platforms to
dig up information about individuals your company is interested in is likely to provide you with
unfiltered piles of information that's not restricted.

Just think - whenever people interact with others in real life, there's never any records of such
interactions outside of closed circuit television networks, for example, which can't be accessed by
persons other than police officers. Social media, fortunately, does provide employers with potentially
lengthy records of who they are on a personal level.

Unfortunately, One Downside of Social Media Screening Is Finding Inconsistent Profiles Of
Information

Proverbial flies on walls are exposed to individuals' true behaviors and personalities, as those
individuals aren't focused on filtering their actions or communications to please others. 

When social media is concerned, most people are actively aware of the potential for anybody on
planet Earth to uncover information about those individuals. As such, they tend to post on social
platforms with mental filters as to best please others.



*collab

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