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other factors. It would also confirm good use of language, positive use of imagery and a generally healthy outlook when operating within an online community.

Simple but important factors are taken into account, including consistency of information, account privacy management, their visibility landscape and the content they post (written and pictorial).

Comparing the ratings summary given in each report to the industry benchmark scores provided by our database sheds a telling shaft of light on the true character hidden behind each CV. In the pre-social media era, recruitment consultants would never have been able to access such powerful insights. We felt that such an enormous change warranted our investment in an overdue tool and service in order to de-risk modern recruitment.

The instant or at least up-to-the-minute communications which take place throughout today's social media-oriented society are not going to disappear. They will continue to build an increasingly accurate picture of those behind the keyboard or touch screen.

Our customers come from a variety of industry sectors all with the objective to improve candidate matching. Although we are intently focused on addressing the challenges social media has introduced to the recruitment process, every day we identify new opportunities to increase the application of our profiling tool into different industry sectors.

This solution is now available to you. Consider how it would help you? Do you think it would boost your revenue and improve candidate matching? I do.

If you would like to know more about Online Social Profiling contact sarah.poynton@sp-index.com  or call 0845 177 0700

Feel free to share your feedback on this article @SP_index and include the hash tag #onlinesocialprofiling.

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SOCIAL PROFILING REVEALS NUGGETS OF TRUTH HIDDEN BY CVs

Social Media Consulting CEO Martin Hardy, founder of the Social People Index (SP Index), a sophisticated, revolutionary social media profiling and monitoring service, asks: How would your candidate matching improve if you could legally access a person's historic social media posts during candidate evaluation?

The power of social media has been commercially acknowledged for many years. Many of the dominant technology vendors included social media in their staff guidelines more than a decade ago - in those days, employees were dissuaded from mentioning their employer online.

There have been many cases in which people have been sacked or pushed out of a role for their online behaviour, but is this an expense and inconvenience that could be avoided at the recruitment stage? In the case of the Kent PCC/Paris Brown affair, the answer is an overwhelming yes.

Although it is perfectly legal for a recruiter to access public information about a person from  social media sites, reading an individual's profile and posts on Facebook, for example, divulges protected characteristics. In some cases, this would mean that recruitment professionals were acting with some discrimination, putting themselves in potential breach of legislation and professional guidelines.

If there was a tool which could ensure you remain compliant, whilst telling your clients that each candidate's social media profiles, posts, blogs and tweets had been character- and risk-profiled, would you be interested to know about it?  You would certainly differentiate yourself from 'the best of the rest'!

This is why we developed the online profile evaluation tool, the SP Index - employee social media checking and monitoring. It enables you to remain compliant whilst still taking candidates' social media behaviour into account when assessing an individual's suitability for a role. Their online cognitive style and profile helps indicate whether they fit your clients' values and culture, team characteristics and whether they have the temperament required for  the role itself.

Research

Research indicates that individuals whose profiles expose hints of bullying, harassment or negativity are quite likely to project similar characteristics in the workplace. It also shows that those prone to revealing private information are likely to do it across multiple websites and, in a commercial environment, are more likely to undermine their employer's ethos or brand. Research also highlights that individuals are more likely to use social media to criticise their current employer before that of a former employer.

In 2010, a research paper called 'Computers in Human Behaviour from the Center for Journalism & Communication Research at University of Texas in Austin, the USA, conducted a study of social media behaviour using a national sample of adults. Findings suggested that while more extrovert men and women were frequent social media users, men with higher degrees of emotional instability were more regular users! As with psychometric tests, it is up to employers how much weight they give this observation.

Online Social Profile Reports

The SP Index ratings and profile reports assess pivotal information to support recruitment decision-making. For example, the reports provide clear visibility of the candidate's online cognitive style which could trigger alarm bells and make social media etiquette training essential if a candidate were to be considered at all.

On the contrary, the profile reports could indicate a definite positive match to your client's culture and role requirement. In confirming a positive online style the SP Index considers factors pertinent to a potential employer: negative blogging and posts about current or former employers, brand bashing, bullying, harassment and many