Recruiting Traps in Social Media

Social Media has become one of the top avenues for companies in their recruiting efforts. The Society for Human Resource Management found that 76 percent of companies used social media sites for recruiting in 2011 and more than half believe that social media is an effective way to recruit candidates.

However, with all the possibilities of social media comes an expansive minefield that can be set off with a wrong step. The problems begin to occur when companies go from sourcing candidates to using social media sites to screen or eliminate candidates based on the information found.

There are three main legal categories to warrant potential disputes.
1) Discrimination. Most people are well aware of the dangers of discrimination and make very conscious efforts to avoid any possible discriminatory practices. However, if you screen a candidate by visiting their social media accounts, you open yourself up to the possibility of receiving large amounts of protected information. Social media sites usually disclose vast amounts of information about a person from their race, gender, age, marital status, religion, politics, disability, etc.

 2) Fair Credit and Reporting Act Regulations. The FCRA provides specific details about requirements of employers and consumer reporting agencies for the screening process. Employers must follow all of these rules very carefully. First and foremost, they must receive permission from the applicant before any pre-employment check. Also, there are specific rules if any information found leads to an adverse hiring decision. Documentation must be kept accurately. The nature of social media makes this difficult to comply because the content is published and controlled by the consumers and can change at any time.

3) Negligent Hiring. It is possible that, if a violent workplace situation occurred in which derogatory information was public on the perpetrator’s social media profiles that could have shown the bad behavior, the employer might become liable for negligence since they did not use the information when the hiring decision was made.

So how can a company reduce these risks? It boils down to three categories you could fall into:
- Deny access to social media for all recruiting purposes
- Only use social media for sourcing candidates
- Use social media throughout the hiring process and create policies and procedures to avoid the dangers. 

For more information on how to avoid the traps in recruiting on social media, call 770.248.0401 or email Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com.