Tips For Social Media Reference Checking (if you must)

// March 22nd, 2010 // Employment Branding

Following on from my last post on the topic, rather than talking about whether it’s right or wrong, I thought I’d try a different approach to the social media recruitment/ background check debate.

I think there are five things that smart, tech-savvy corporates (and recruiters, but I tend to write from a corporate perspective) can do to help candidates and managers with the issue of ‘public’ information about people’s private lives.

Set boundaries.

Where do you as a company/recruiter draw the line? Is LinkedIn the limit, or will you use Google, Twitter, Facebook, (the list is endless) to build a cultural profile. Determine what constitutes relevant information and make it public that these are the streams you’ll combine to build your information flow. This lets candidates know where you’ll be looking.

Publish your practice.

Make it part of your Terms and Conditions. Put special content in your “Thanks For Applying” auto-replies so there’s NO DOUBT that this is your practice. Better yet, give candidates an opportunity to opt-out of this process if they’re concerned. Outline what your boundaries are (and preferably your methodology) so candidates can perform the same audits and be prepared to address any discrepancies that come up.

Educate your candidates.

Publish tips about how to protect private information for your candidates. We used to put up tips about how to write resumes. Now put up tips about protecting yourself from personal brand fall-out. We are learned in this field, so our expectation is different. My engineers wouldn’t appreciate the challenges in personal vs professional, so passing on our expertise is key. And a value-add to candidates, who tend to feel like renters in a buyer’s market anyway.

Create an internal content filter.

Be prepared to have your policy of making cultural decisions tested by candidates. Have written guidelines about what content can and cannot be used to make these decisions. Have guidelines about how you clarify identity (email addresses are a good indicator for an ATS) in a shared-name situation, how far you go back monitoring, how you amplify and evaluate digital foot-prints. If you’re going to evaluate on data, have a visible measuring system so you know what to keep, and what to discard when profiling.

Make a statement with your employer brand.

I know it’s my area of personal focus, but I think that being transparent, authentic and honest in your conversations with people who are interested in joining you is key. And that extends to telling them how that you’re using this media to evaluate them, how you’re evaluating them and give them the opportunity to be actively involved in the discussion. It’s about maintaining trust between the organisation and your candidates, and demonstrating that you value discussion, not hearsay.

These may not save you, but I think they’re still good tips when it comes to protecting your company, your brand and your candidates. At the end of the day, we need to be able to show that we respect our candidates, and while we can use this information to make better hiring decisions, we won’t do that at the expense of our employees’ trust.