Social media screening is a valuable tool to help you reduce hiring and reputational risk. It also helps you make better decisions by providing insights unavailable through traditional background checks. However, knowing that you can’t do a thorough social media check by simply checking a few places yourself is essential. To do it well, you need a compliant third-party provider.
Increased Sales
A social media screening provider can provide a more accurate and comprehensive picture of a candidate, helping businesses reduce hiring risks and choose better candidates. Experienced providers utilize automated programs to help ensure the process is conducted in an ethical and legally compliant manner. Many employers need help considering social media data as part of the recruitment process. After all, most people use LinkedIn, X, and TikTik purely as their professional space to build their business brand and share experiences. They may also be more private with specific posts, likes, or groups unrelated to their job, such as religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and citizenship status.
Nevertheless, businesses must do their homework to understand the legal parameters they must consider. This includes regularly consulting with a legal professional, attending HR-related seminars, and subscribing to newsletters focused on best practices. The future of recruitment will require a delicate balance between harnessing social media as a rich source of candidate data and upholding the digital privacy rights of individuals.
Enhanced Customer Service
In a world where social media is a growing customer service channel, companies must have a system to shuttle questions or concerns to the proper team quickly. This can help reduce churn and increase brand loyalty.
While it may seem counterintuitive, using a third-party social media screening provider is the best way to do this. HR teams can save time and resources by enlisting a trusted partner to perform these searches. This process eliminates the risks of legal issues and missed insights that can result from performing these searches independently. An excellent social media screening provider can browse public platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. They can also review quasi-private platforms, which require users to register to participate and may not be visible at first glance but can become accessible through methods such as screenshots or reposts. This will provide a comprehensive digital footprint that will give the hiring team a complete picture of an applicant and valuable character insights.
Increased Reputation
Social media screening can uncover much information about an applicant not found on a resume or during an interview. However, there’s a fine line between a business’s need for this type of information and being considered intrusive, which can turn off applicants and cause legal issues. When done correctly, social media screening can be a valuable tool to help businesses make better hiring decisions. It can also reduce hiring, reputational, and brand risk by helping them choose suitable candidates. By working with a social media screening provider, you can ensure the process is compliant and avoid any potential legal or privacy risks.
It’s important to know that there are some personal details you cannot search for during a social media screening, such as marital status, sexual orientation, religion, or citizenship. You should also set a clear policy with your team so candidates understand the parameters of what you will and won’t be looking for. This will prevent your company from crossing the line into snooping and creating unnecessary controversy. This will help you find the best talent while staying within compliance.
Increased Employee Satisfaction
Many people see their social media feeds as a personal space to share experiences and anecdotes and don’t expect potential employers to look at them. If your recruitment team reviews candidates’ social media profiles ad-hoc, this can be seen as unfair and violates procedural justice.
A qualified 3rd party can provide a consistent and unbiased screening process using predetermined criteria that are objective and job-related. They will also focus on only business-related information and redact protected class information. Ultimately, this will save time and ensure you notice everything necessary while avoiding legal risks. A quality screening provider will also offer a full range of background checks, such as education verification, criminal records, and employer reference checks. All of these will be performed through a single system, making the entire process easy and convenient for your team.
It will also help reduce the risk of error and improve consistency throughout the process. This will ultimately lead to a more efficient and effective hiring process, which will benefit your company in the long run.
Increased Productivity
A well-planned social media screening process can identify red flags in a candidate’s online presence, such as violent content or offensive comments. These may indicate a lack of professionalism or a disregard for company policies.
Screening also helps verify information on a resume, including education, degrees, and professional affiliations. But while there are plenty of positive benefits to social media screening, it’s essential to maintain a balanced approach between gathering the relevant information and being overly intrusive. For instance, specific personal details—like race, sex, age, religion, and mental or physical disabilities—should never be considered during a social media search. And, since the legal parameters of social media screening continue to evolve, companies must stay abreast of changes to ensure that they’re operating within the law.
Otherwise, they run the risk of facing lawsuits over alleged discrimination. For this reason, it’s essential to have a dedicated individual overseeing the screening process. This will help ensure that the screening process is fair for all candidates.