Fullbright 1 Mark Fullbright 10/25/2013 Instructor Mohlere English 112-42

The new wave of Social Media and the Hiring Process Social media has become an enthralling part of everyones lives today. This social media explosion has become a new tool to hire and fire in the workplace. As the times change so should the ways we become employed. Companies have so much more information on individuals and in turn can create a better and more accountable workforce for their business. This is a needed change and I feel its a necessary revolution in the hiring process. As more and more ways to access this media becomes available, access to everyone's personal lives also gets put out there for everyone to see. This includes prospective employers. Its become common practice for employers to use social media to screen potential employees and to get a glimpse of a persons personal life. The Ohio State Bar Association states, In April 2012, CareerBuilder sponsored a Harris Interactive survey of more than 2,000 hiring managers and human resource professionals and found that 37 percent of them screen job seekers using social networking sites. Employers are requesting access to personal social media hubs to get an insight of a prospective employees character. They want to know if applicants are trustworthy, clean-cut professionals or if theyre reckless and irresponsible individuals that make questionable decisions. The argument lies in whether or not its right to do so. 29 percent of employers in the

Fullbright 2 same Harris Survey stated previously, said they discovered information that encouraged them to hire an applicant. That is enough information to look at both sides and give it a fair chance. As an employer I can "clean out the garbage" in a more efficient way and get a more professional and qualified work force hired. In an employers point of view, if an applicant presents themselves to be a professional, their personal social portal will reflect that. This in turn will give an employer a positive boost in quality employees because they are more likely to hire you. If there is a stack of 100 applications sitting on a managers desk and they wanted to use a tool at their disposal to get down to 10 of the best applicants in the pile, social media can help them do that. They can write in a simple statement into the job applications saying social media will be used in the application screening process, and add a signed acknowledgment. It would now be in the best interest of an employer to have a third party to do the digging and add strict guidelines on what to look for and make it a standard across the board. Based on what someone puts out on the internet, companies should be able to paint a picture of a persons character. Most would expect that with social media being used as much as it is, applicants should and will take advantage of the hiring side of it. An applicant who uses a companys access into their lives to highlight their positive accomplishments, experience, and extracurricular activities would shoot toward the top of the list of potential hires. The way an applicant carries themselves on their "wall" or "news feed" would be a clear indication of their attitude and personality toward others and themselves. An employer can also scrutinize their communication skills and grammar to get an idea of their educational background and compare it to the application submitted. Those applicants that have pictures of themselves engaging in questionable or illegal acts or swearing every other word in their post should be weeded out of the stack. Here is the kicker as an employer, Federal and State laws dictate that an applicants age, race, color, national origin,

Fullbright 3 religion, gender, disability and veteran status cannot be considered when a company is screening job applicants. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) protects a candidates genetics and family medical history as well (John McKenzie, Esq 1). So its established that our personal lives are just that, personal. However, if we put the time and effort to put it up on any kind of social website for all to see employers should be able to see it. Its different to say that employers have the right to gain access to your account to scour it for discrepancies, this is adifferent matter altogether. When it comes to employers asking for passwords to gain access to accounts and log in as the user is wrong! Most of these websites require the user to use personal important information such as phone numbers, an address, and even a personal email and passwords just to open an account which is guarded by a contract from the social media company. There is another aspect of social media that can be an issue. Employers using religious, sexual, racial, political views and even disorders can be used to quietly discriminate against you as an applicant. Well because you signed a statement allowing them access, in one way or the other youre the one allowing them to do so and its totally legal. This is a very controversial subject and there are many avenues we can take to debate the subject. Using social media for recruitment advertising is one of the good aspects of social media being used as a positive tool. According to HR Magazine, a source for human resource and business management professionals, the Jobsite 2010 Social Recruiting Survey of more than 600 HR and recruiting professionals, 86% of companies used social media for recruiting. This is an efficient and effective avenue for companies to fill vacancies and expand their workforce. Only 32% of those companies ALWAYS screened applicants and looked at applicants profiles. Large companies are going to benefit from this kind of job advertising the most and social media lets

Fullbright 4 them touch millions of people daily. At the end of the day we have full control of what gets put out social media website, if people dont want employers to access to their social life, don't post it up or put some kind of limited access to it. There are controls on these social media sites to filter content. There are even people who use aliases to set up a ghost account to further protect themselves and have a little more leniency on what they want to post. Why not use social media to gain an edge over other applicants to get a job or start a career? Companies can recruit effectively though social media. However I think companies are opening themselves up a legal can of worms if its used in the wrong way. There are laws in place today that protect people from discrimination and companies shouldnt have access to information regarding age, race, color, national origin, religion, gender, disability and veteran status. How can these laws protect an applicants privacy if every aspect of their private life gets volunteered to the public by the applicant? The answer is it cant and it doesnt. However why would any company want to go that route other than to build a quality workforce or to discriminate against certain applicants? For example Lisa D. Grant Harpe PHD and industrial psychologist and senior consultant for Peopleclick research institute states, I recently learned that one of my friends who happened to be job hunting was pregnant based on a comment posted to her wall by a friend. If potential employers have been examining her Facebook profile, would they consider that information during the hiring process? The answer to that question is yes because they can and there is no way to prove it, therefore technically its legal to do so. Let me explain that statement. Whether or not there is a law in place to protect people against discrimination doesnt mean there are not people out there exploiting a loophole in the law in one way or another. Any perfectly legal grey area advantage a business can get over another can and will be exploited by that business if given the chance. Social media is that chance. Social

Fullbright 5 media as a hiring tool thats inevitable. Because the applicant has complete control over what an employer can see and because the company has more access to an applicants information to make the best hiring decision. Both sides can benefit and both sides become more accountable for their own actions in the process. I think that good old fashion American freedom and free enterprise.

Fullbright 6 Works Cited

McKenzie, John W. "Are Potential Employers Getting Too Much Personal Information from Social Media Sites?" Ohio State Bar Association. Ohio State Bar Association, 17 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <https://www.ohiobar.org/ForPublic/Resources/LawYouCanUse/Pages/LawYouCanUse641.aspx>. John, Mckenzie Esq. "Law You Can Use: Getting too personal?" YouTube. Ohio State Bar Association, 5 Nov. Web. 20 Oct. 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vn2kvKVkw4>.

Lisa, Harpe, Ph.D. Social Networks and employment Law. 1st. 1. N/C: Peopleclick, Inc., 2009. 24. Ebook.

"Social Networking Comes To Fore As Regular Recruiting Tool." HR Magazine 55.12 (2010): 63. Small Business Reference Center. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.