The thought of using social networking sites as part of a candidate background check has been debated greatly in recent months. I have to confess, I am of two minds on the topic.

Foxnews.com offers up an interesting story titled Job Hunters Hire Pros to Clean Up Online Profiles. Some CareerBuilder.com stats are provided within the story:

A study of 1,150 hiring managers by Careerbuilder.com found 26 percent of managers admitted to using search engines such as Google and 12 percent of managers said they used social networking sites like Facebook.com in their hiring process.

…

Of the 12 percent who checked social networking sites, 63 percent declined to hire an applicant based on what they found, citing lying about qualifications and criminal behavior as two of the top disqualifiers.

So there is an obvious opportunity here and now the companies are attempting to fill it.

For $10 a month, ReputationDefender.com will search your name everywhere €” even “beyond Google” €” including password-protected sites, and give a report of their findings.

For about $30 a month, clients can have them do a clean-up, which involves ensuring all links to, for example, a college kegstand on Facebook.com or a disparaging blog entry from a former partner, will not appear during an online search.

“More than half of my clients use us just to search and don’t even ask us to clean anything up,” the company’s chief executive and founder Michael Fertik, 28, told Reuters.

Yeah, 28 year-old founder. I think he is going to be successful with this one. In the end, I think I lean more towards using the social network sites for background checks due to this:

The Careerbuilder.com study found 64 percent of hiring mangers had their hiring decision confirmed by information found online and 40 percent of managers said their decision was solidified by seeing that a candidate was “well rounded” and showed a wide range of interests.”

Discretion is a desirable trait in any candidate.

Comments(2)

This week we focus on a critical sales management trait. We often encounter sales managers who attempt to sell first, manage later. This approach may pay short-term dividends, but the long-term effect is an underdeveloped sales team. We always look at this measurement when hiring sales managers.

Developing Others
The ability to understand the needs, interests, strengths and weaknesses of others and utilize this information for developing others. This trait is derived primarily from a person€™s concern, their ability to evaluate others, and their ability to identify with others. It is affected by a person€™s focus on structure and order. The person with a strong focus on structure will tend to better understand the importance of building an organizational system. If the person also has positive empathetic skills, they will see the development of others as the way to build
the organization through people.

A sales manager with strength in this trait will be able to: accurately identify the strengths and weaknesses of an individual, evaluate them against the requirements of a job or goal and then design a program which will effectively elevate that person€™s skills to the needed level to achieve success.

A sales manager with weakness in this trait may have poor empathetic abilities and may not be able to determine who needs development. They simply may not consider it important. Also, a manager with weakness in this area may not take a proactive approach to management. They fail to perceive the importance in planning ahead to develop contingent talent. Instead, they may tend to be reactive and deal only with the immediate, or that which presents itself now.

Comments(0)