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More than half of employers have rejected a candidate due to social media activity according to careerbuilder.co.uk survey.
Sneaky Snooping
Social networking checks or 'sneaky snooping' on someone's Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn is becoming more and more mainstream every single day. A new survey from CareerBuilder.co.uk found that 55 per cent of employers who use social networks to 'snoop' on candidates have found content that caused them to reject the candidate.
We know that not every employer is looking at social network activity during recruitment but the trend is certainly set to rise with 12% of employers who don't currently research on social networks planning to start in 2015. It seems candidates are not safe anywhere with 50% of employers using search engines such as Google alongside social networks with 21% saying they do so frequently or always.
Although it is important for candidates to remember that what they are putting on the web represents them almost indefinitely, it is more worrying just how many employers are openly engaged in 'snooping' activity that not only breaches current UK legislation but is often inaccurate and extremely time consuming, when there are specialist outsourced suppliers that can provide more accurate results, in a far more compliant way, in a fraction of the time. It doesn't make sense that business owners are paying their staff to surf social media and networks in the blind hope they will find a nugget of information that could help them understand their candidates better.
What if it is the wrong John Smith?
Google is an incredible tool, its sheer brilliance is the start of the downfall of
in house online checks. Google doesn't distinguish between protected characteristics,
or different people with the same name. Google gives you everything and unfortunately
we cannot un-
Don't you have a job to do?
Until your company puts a budget to creating a job role where 'snooping' through Google on the hunt for dirty secrets and trawling through endless Facebook posts is in the job description then this unfocused activity is costing your business money every day. It is estimated in the UK that recruiters and HR professionals are spending approximately 27 minutes per shortlisted applicant to carry out checks across Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google, Instagram, You Tube, Vimeo, MySpace, Bebo, Snapchat and so on and on and on……
Quick Fire Points:
- If you recruited 25 vacancies last year you probably shortlisted a minimum of 75 candidates
- If you shortlisted 75 candidates it is likely your team spent at least 2,025 minutes (more than 4 full working days) in speculative 'snooping'
- This is almost a whole week on something that is not even compliant with UK equality legislation
- By outsourcing this process to SP-
Index you can be 100% compliant and achieve more accurate results keeping your business protected for the future