Recruiters Are Checking You Out On Facebook
August 20, 2009
Employers increasingly turning to Facebook to check up on you
by Christopher Null: The Working Guy. Yahoo Tech
If you’re lucky enough to have landed a job interview in this economy, you’d better have your ducks in a row. And more and more these days that means getting your social networks in order before your would-be bosses come sniffing around.
According to a survey conducted by CareerBuilder, Facebook has become the network of choice for recruiters to sniff out data about job applicants, with 30 percent of hiring managers saying they use Facebook searches to research information about new and potential hires.
Read the rest of the article here.
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Employee Screening Articles For June & July 2009
August 3, 2009
In case you missed any of our employee screening articles for June and July, here’s a quick recap of our most popular:
- 6 Tips On I-9 Compliance In The Hospitality Industry
- 5 Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy
- Are Colleges Spying On High School Students?
- Hiring Managers Are Checking You Out
- New Employee Screening Trend -Second Chance For Ex-Offenders
- E-Verify for Employers in South Carolina and Mississippi
- Small Business Guide To Pre-Employment Background Checks
- The Hottest, Newest HR Technology for Background Screening
- The Importance Of Post-Hire Background Checks
- 4 Tips On How To Use Social Networks For Employee Screening
Smart, Compliant Hiring Decisions Made Easy
FYI Screening, Inc. offers a complete portfolio of employee screening services that will help you work smarter while providing the industry’s fastest turnaround and the highest quality results. This will allow your company to focus on what really matters: hiring and retaining the best employees possible.
- Subscribe to our blog to stay informed
- Follow on Twitter
- Connect on LinkedIn
4 Tips On How To Use Social Networks For Employee Screening
July 28, 2009
One of the hottest and most controversial topics in the background screening space is the use of social networks to screen employees.
The New York Law Journal covers this important issue in an article titled “Social Networking and Blogging: Managing the Conversation.”
The Tips:
- Employers choosing to screen blogs and social networking profiles must also comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The FCRA requires an applicant’s or employee’s consent before an employer may engage a “consumer reporting agency” to produce a “consumer report” on that individual. FCRA does not prohibit employers from receiving or using the consumer report that contains information derived from social networking sites or blogs, but it requires disclosure that such information resulted in an adverse employment decision.
- Employers should also develop clear rules regarding their hiring procedure if they wish to make use of available online information from personal blogs and social networking sites for screening purposes.
- For instance, it is vital that a wall be constructed between the ultimate decision maker and the individual conducting the initial online research. While specific rules will vary based on an individual employer’s needs, any employer utilizing these technologies should ensure that irrelevant information is screened and filtered before it reaches the decision maker.
- The law applicable to employee blogging and social networking is still evolving, and the lack of legal precedent leaves significant room for interpretation. When making use of online resources, however, it is better to err on the side of caution, as the potential risks to the employer can be significantly greater than any benefits the additional information social networking sites and blogs may provide.
Smart Business Decisions Made Easy
FYI Screening, Inc. offers a complete portfolio of employee screening services that will help you work smarter while providing the industry’s fastest turnaround and the highest quality results.
This will allow your company to focus on what really matters: hiring and retaining the best employees possible.
- Subscribe to our blog to stay informed
- Follow on Twitter
- Connect on LinkedIn
Dangers Of Using Social Networks On The Job Hunt In Australia
July 22, 2009
NEWS.com.au (Australia) reports about the Dangers of using social networks on the job hunt.
Employers using social networks to gather information on job candidates could be breaking the law.
Social networks have become hot recruitment tools but Harmers Workplace Lawyers warn that using such sources to gather personal information to screen would-be employees carries a number of legal risks.
Harmers senior associate Bronwyn Maynard says many employers and recruiters are not aware of their obligations under the existing Privacy Act let alone the “General Protections” section of the Fair Work Act that came into force on July 1, 2009.
Under the Privacy Act employers and recruiters must:
- Inform a candidate that they have collected personal information about them.
- Explain the purpose of gathering the information.
- Tell the candidate who else will see the information.
Luckily for recruiters and hiring managers, most candidates don’t realise that under privacy legislation they are entitled to see notes made about them during the recruitment screening process.
“The Privacy Act also dictates that companies must only collect personal information that is necessary for their business,” explains Ms Maynard.
Candidates can apply directly to employers and recruitment consultants to see the notes made and information gathered about them during a recruitment campaign. A candidate can request that inaccurate information be corrected. If the candidate considers the information irrelevant he or she can then make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.
Ms Maynard said while there is no set timeframe, to expect a reply within 30 days would be a reasonable.
Read more about the Dangers of using social networks on the job hunt.
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Photo Credit: Hexadecimal Time
What Your Boss Knows Could Hurt You
July 14, 2009
Here’s some good tips on privacy from PC World.
Written by Christopher Null
How to Avoid Facebook and Twitter Disasters
Who knew your boss could see so much of your Facebook page–including the pics from your wild weekend? Oversharing can lead to underemployment. Take some practical steps to control what others see about you.
Read the article here.
After reading that you may want to read “Does Google Know Too Much About You?” by Ian Paul.
Photo credit: izik
The Pitfalls Of Using Social Networking To Screen Potential Employees
July 13, 2009
Here’s an excellent article on using social networks for employee screening.
Source: IT Business Edge
Lora Bentley spoke with Jacqueline Klosek, senior counsel and privacy law practitioner at Goodwin Procter, about the pitfalls employers want to avoid when using social networking and other Web sites to screen potential employees.
Bentley: I’ve read about the public outcry that resulted from the City of Bozeman, Montana’s decision to ask job applicants for their social networking site user names and passwords. Obviously, there are enough problems associated with that practice that the city discontinued it. Can you explain?
Klosek: It’s just, in my mind, fraught with legal dangers. For example, what you post on your own Web site, the writings and photos and such, you’re really using someone else’s service. And for the most part, if you provide your password to the sites in which you participate, you could be violating their terms of use, which could leave you as the user subject to potential claims, including termination of your account or worse.
Then, as an employer, say you ask someone for their user name and password and then give it to another employee to do the screening, you don’t know exactly what they’re going to do with that information. With the user name and password, they’re basically impersonating the person whose account it is. They can send e-mails that purport to be on that person’s behalf, they can review e-mails that were sent from other people… It could be mundane personal communications, but there could also be trade secrets being exchanged, or a host of other things behind these protected e-mails. It’s just a minefield of dangers, in my view.
Bentley: What if you are using the Internet to screen prospective employees without their user names and passwords? Aren’t there still risks in doing that?
Read the rest of the article here.
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Photo Credit: AdamSelwood
Hiring Managers Are Checking You Out
June 10, 2009
According to a Jump Start Social Media survey that polled 100 hiring managers at small, mid-sized and large companies:
Three-quarters of hiring managers check LinkedIn to research the credentials of job candidates. Of the hiring managers surveyed, 75% use LinkedIn, 48% use Facebook, and 26% use Twitter to research candidates before making a job offer.
“Social media is not only a great networking tool, it’s also a way for employers to perform reference checks on job candidates,” said Veronica Fielding, president of Digital Brand Expressions and its social media service for consumers, Jump Start Social Media. “Because LinkedIn is the most professionally oriented of the three, it tends to attract hiring managers who are doing due diligence.”
Read the rest of the article here.
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The One Thing Not To Post On Twitter
June 8, 2009
Are Colleges Spying On High School Students?
June 6, 2009
From The (Toledo) Blade
There has been a growing trend in recent years for employers to check out MySpace, Facebook, and, more recently, Twitter pages on the Internet to learn more about people applying for jobs. There even have been cases in which college students were denied degrees or certifications because of objectionable things posted on their social networking sites.
Now, high school students have cause to beware as well because a significant number of colleges are using these sites, as well as search engines, to research and evaluate applicants, even denying admissions or scholarships based on what they find.
According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, 26 percent of college admission officers surveyed said they used Internet search engines and 21 percent said they used social networking sites to research prospective students. The survey of hundreds of colleges was conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
In other words, it’s not just predators who might be monitoring the tweets and posts of teenagers. It also could be the people who decide where those teens go to college, which ought to make young people pause before they hit the send button to share with friends their latest exploits.
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Photo Credit: lancefisher
5 Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy
June 3, 2009
Frederic Abramson over at the New York Business Law Blog gives you 5 Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy.
Read them here.
I also recommend that you follow Frederic Abramson on Twitter here. He is a New York Business Law Attorney that offers lots of great advice.
