What is Social Media Background Screening for employment?

Users of social media continue to expand, with over half of the world’s population utilising social networks. Social media influences not just how individuals connect and interact with others online, but it is also influencing how people get hired for their next possible employment.

Almost every candidate has a sizable social media presence. Including well-known platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok, as well as more specialist ones such as gaming websites. These accounts reveal a great deal about a candidate's beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours.

Social media accounts and activity may reveal a lot about a candidate. Unsurprisingly, businesses are increasingly reviewing candidates' social media footprints as part of the recruitment process. As cultures and work style grow, social media inspections are becoming an increasingly crucial tool in every business's risk analysis armament.

What is social media background screening?

The social media background screening (also known as a social media pre employment screening) is the practise of investigating a job applicant's accounts and activity on social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others.

The goal is to learn more about the applicant's past and establish if there is anything the employer should be aware of before making an offer of employment. A competent social media audit eliminates risk to a company's brand, reputation, privacy, and digital security.

A social media check is intended to complement the regular recruiting checks that businesses often conduct, from CV screening and references to ID and criminal record checks. The background checks round out an applicant's profile, providing employers with vital information on how a person would act in the workplace.

A professional social media check looks into how extensively a candidate is connected and the threats posed by their connections, as well as any advocacy of illicit activities such as drugs, theft, violence, and forgery.

Importance of Social Media Checks

Getting to Know a Candidate: The major purpose of social media screening is to learn more about a possible new employee. It's common for an applicant to behave inappropriately when dealing with a representative from your organisation. A candidate's social media presence, on the other hand, frequently gives a far deeper insight into how a candidate genuinely behaves.

Background Check that is both inexpensive and accurate: It is also critical for businesses to use low-cost screening procedures. Unfortunately, traditional background screening is sometimes time-consuming and expensive. Firms are frequently forced to wait for other people or businesses to react to their requests. Social media screening, on the other hand, is a lot faster and less expensive approach. Social media screening does not necessitate waiting for other people. As a result, your organisation will be able to screen candidates swiftly and efficiently.

Obtaining Beneficial Candidate Information: A social media background check is not just used to uncover negative information about prospects, instead, enables you to learn about a candidate's positive characteristics.

Filtering Bad Matches Immediately: No one wants to work in a toxic work environment. This can have disastrous consequences for a company, such as employee turnover and potential lawsuits. To address this issue, organisations must guarantee that potentially toxic people are not hired. Social media screening ensures that applicants with divisive beliefs or histories do not enter your organisation.

Company Security: Hiring someone associated with a Prohibited Organization or unlawful activity, for example, might subject your organisation to bribery, corruption, or fraud.

Investigating Professional Recommendations or References: Users on certain social media networks may now get recommendations. These endorsements are frequently given by people who have worked directly with your candidates. For example, LinkedIn is frequently used by former and present employers to promote someone they've worked with.

As a result, this information might be a treasure for learning more about possible prospects. However, knowing about endorsements for a wide range of candidates might take a long time. However, having a mechanism to identify and read these endorsements automatically saves time.

Protecting your company’s Integrity: A negative media report can harm a company's reputation for many years, for example, by associating your brand with misogynistic or racist behaviour. Social media checks may also be used to evaluate information supplied by a candidate, allowing you to assess more intangible attributes such as trust.

The Advantages of Hiring Professional Social Media Screening

You will obtain an impartial, compliant, thorough, and consistent assessment of your applicant if you choose a third-party partner to do your social media checks. That means you can freely discuss the results of the check and any associated difficulties with your applicant, and they'll be a part of the process from the start. Complygates  expert social media checks are intended and tailored to preserve a candidate's privacy and trust.

Here are some of the benefits of professional Social Media Screening:

Improve employer reputation

Being seen to be addressing issues related to diversity, tolerance, and prejudice is clearly a critical problem and opportunity for businesses.

If you don't do enough to change candidates' impressions, you risk damaging your brand's reputation and losing some of the finest and brightest individuals.

When doing subjective web searches in-house, the possibility of discriminating against applicants based on personal prejudice, whether conscious or unconscious, increases. Using a third-party expert can help you ensure candidates that you are dedicated to doing compliant, fair, transparent, and consistent social media checks as part of a rigorous, high-quality recruiting process.

All applicants are examined similarly in professional social media screening, using the same tools, techniques, and procedures.

Eliminate unconscious prejudice

Unconscious prejudice may be discriminatory and can adversely impact workplace decisions such as recruiting, promotion, and performance management.

Using a trustworthy partner, such as Complygate, to handle your social media checks will give you a uniform method of conducting checks throughout the company.

Meet your search for potential candidate

The 2020 Pandemic has demonstrated the importance of adaptation, self-motivation, and creativity for organisations, with many employees working from home or adjusting to Covid-safe methods. Social media checks are a quick, easy, and efficient approach to find characteristics that your prospect shares with your company's values.

Employers may also use social media checks to connect with prospective new talent right from the start of the recruiting process, by providing education and coaching on building a professional digital persona, as well as guidance and assistance for candidates.

Professional social media Screening may provide you with the tools you need to keep up with the times and safeguard your organisation, brand, employees, and customers, all while recruiting top talent and enhancing your reputation.

Social Media Checks: Dos and Don'ts

If you decide to do social media background checks on a client's LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account, you should follow the standards mentioned below. Some measures should be taken, while others should be avoided.

Steps to be taken (Dos)

Maintain consistency: While recruiting for a job, make sure you screen everyone - or no one at all. Ensure that the rules are consistent; either everyone or no one gets checked at a certain level.

Examine only publicly accessible pages: You should only look at pages that are open to the public. You should never, ever ask for the applicant's social network login.

Provide specific guidelines to your background check provider to follow: If you subcontract your pre-employment screening tests to a company like Complygate, make it clear what you want to know and what you don't. Clear direction makes a huge difference.

Steps not to be taken (Don’ts)

Perform screening from the start: Do not do these background checks until you are almost ready to make a final employment choice. Waiting until after the interviews makes it impossible for candidates to argue that their Facebook material was the reason they were not hired.

Involve the hiring manager: Leave the background screening to HR specialists or a outsourced agency.

Inquire about their social media passwords: This is a serious violation of GDPR and may result in legal action. This should be avoided at all costs.

Don't choose candidates just based on this check: Background checks on individuals cannot be performed on an as-needed basis. For example, suppose you have selected applicants and decide impulsively to examine one of their social media sites because you have a terrible feeling about them. Be consistent, as already said.

If maintaining background checks regularly and complaints are a concern for you, you may be thinking of doing this alone. Alternatively, for the best results, consult with a background check professional.

With coherent, systematic background check procedures and systems adapted precisely to your company size and turnover,  Complygate helps organisations make wiser recruiting decisions and stay compliant with their respective requirements.