EMPLOYERS are being warned about the pitfalls of using social networking sites to screen potential employees. The popularity of sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Bebo is increasing the potential employers have to find out information about possible candidates before offering an interview.
Research shows that one in five employers in the UK is now using Facebook or similar networking sites as a means of vetting candidates.
Advocate Louise Hall spoke about the issue at a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development conference.
‘The use of sites like Facebook can work to an applicant’s advantage if the information shows them to be dynamic, sociable, presentable and enthusiastic, but can also work to their disadvantage if the information that is accessed prejudices the candidate in some way.
‘There was a widely reported quote in The Times in July where an employer admitted turning down a job applicant after learning that the applicant had used Facebook to ﾓcriticise previous employers and discuss company informationﾔ.’
But Advocate Hall said the feedback she had got from the conference was that local companies were not using networking sites to vet applicants.
About 80 representatives from a range of local industries attended the seminar and not one indicated it had checked a candidate on a networking site.
‘It’s certainly not something we would encourage people to do because there are risks in doing so. The terms and conditions of sites like Facebook usually include a prohibition on details gained from them being used for commercial use.
‘Using them for employment-related purposes would almost certainly be judged as a commercial practice if a networking site should decide to take a company up on this sort of use.’
She said that although a focused online search specifically to check a job applicant’s past loyalty to employers could be a sensible use, uncontrolled and unmonitored searching of candidates was not advisable.
‘Any information obtained from a social networking site which is later relied on in making a recruitment decision should be relevant to the job in question.’
Use of foul language on the sites is reportedly one of the top 10 turn-offs for recruiters and, depending on the position applied for, could be something that an employer could reasonably take into account in deciding whether a candidate is suitable for a job.
Advocate Hall said there was no reason why an unsuccessful job applicant should not raise a data subject access request for IT records which would show whether someone in the organisation - particularly someone in HR or a manager concerned with the recruitment process - had accessed a social networking site to obtain information on them.
‘Because of the risk of recruitment information unfairly prejudicing somebody’s chance of obtaining employment, I would strongly recommend that any employer who adopts this type of screening method specifies that in their recruitment and internet policies and restricts any online searches on job candidates to the human resources department.
‘Otherwise, irrelevant personal information could be used in the recruitment process to a job applicant’s disadvantage, giving rise to possible claims under the data protection law, the sex discrimination law or the human rights law, depending on the nature of that information.’
Article posted on 26th November, 2007 - 12.00am
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