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.