Why You Should NOT Use Social

Media To Make Hiring Decisions

November 5, 2015

I keep seeing articles about how information from individuals’ social media posts can
be helpful in making hiring decisions. Every time I see it, I cringe a little and wanted
to share my reasons why. Let’s talk about the most common way that social media is
used in the selection process - hiring managers peruse social media pages of
candidates looking for any kind of information or behavior that could lead them to
conclude that their candidate would be a poor hire.

A survey by careerbuilder.com states that 51% of the employers surveyed found

information on social media that caused them to NOT hire a candidate. The article
lists reasons ranging from posting provocative photos and drinking/drug use, to a
general unprofessional image. On the surface, these might sound like good reasons
to pass over a candidate, but let’s look at how this fits into selection best practices.

Consistency/Reliability
When a piece of information is learned from social media and that information is
used to make a decision about that candidate, you have now used social media as a
step or hurdle in the hiring process and it is subject to the same scrutiny as other
decision-making tools. When it comes to selection processes, consistency is the
key. If social media is an official hurdle in the selection process, then all candidates
who make it to that stage are held to the same standards and criteria.
So let’s say you have whittled your applicant pool down to three final candidates and
you want to look at social media information on these candidates. You find out that
candidate 1 has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. All of
candidate 1’s information is public and available. You find only a Facebook account
for candidate 2 and most of the information is private. Candidate 3 has no social
media accounts at all for you to review. You have a lot of information to review for
candidate 1, a little information to review on candidate 2 and no information to review
on candidate 3. Unless you “require” your candidates to provide access to their
social media accounts as part of the process (which I would have concerns about as
well) you are relying on the information made public by the candidate.

Let’s add to the mix that research has shown that there are age and gender
differences (Correa, Hinsley, & de Zúñiga, 2010; Lenhart, 2009; Lenhart, Purcell,
Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010) with regard to social media use. Younger candidates are
more likely to use social media. Compared to women, men are more likely to have a
profile on LinkedIn but less likely to have a profile on Facebook. So, you have an
inconsistent supply of information from different sources of social media that could
lead to unfair treatment of a protected class – just because that class is more likely
to use social media. Even if you did have comparable information to review on all
candidates, it’s doubtful that valid evaluation criteria have been established to lead
to consistent decision making based on social media information so that every
individual who makes a social media faux pas is treated exactly the same way.

With all that said, social media does not provide reliable and consistent information
on all of your candidates. If you are going to use a tool to make a hiring decision,
EEOC guidelines say that it must be reliable and valid. Collecting inconsistent
information on your candidates, that might differ across protected classes, and
applying inconsistent standards to that information violates best selection practices
and not only decreases the accuracy of the selection process, but opens your
process up to legal scrutiny. Next, let’s discuss the job relevancy of the information
gleaned from social media.

Job Relevance/Fairness
Let’s assume you feel comfortable looking at social media information on your
candidates. It’s exceptionally important that the information you learn about the
candidates and use to make a screen out decision is job relevant. Using an example
from the careerbuilder.com survey, drinking alcohol is not an illegal act and if a
candidate chooses to drink alcohol when they are not performing their job duties, this
should not be used to draw any inferences about the individual and his/her ability to
perform the job.

Like it or not, if you were to use social

media to evaluate alcoholism or make
inferences based on alcohol use, the
EEOC could criticize your process as
having a pre-offer medical examination
and consider you in violation of the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Social media, by its nature, is going to
provide you personal information about
candidates that you could unintentionally
use that is not related to candidates’
qualifications. Facebook pages, for example, can tell you a lot about a person’s age,
race, and gender. It can divulge their religious affiliation and beliefs on certain topics
(e.g., guns or abortion). You can learn about their family situation – if they have
children, are they married, are they trying to get pregnant. Unless this information is
job relevant and speaks to their ability to perform in the target role, it cannot legally
be used in making a hiring decision.

We all have unconscious biases that come into play when we make decisions,

being privy to personal, not job-related information, can seep into our consciousness
and affect our judgment without our knowledge. In recent years, a lot of efforts have
been taken to reduce the likelihood of learning about characteristics related to
protected classes until late in the selection process. Adding social media to your
process opens the door to a plethora of personal information.

Remember, when you are called to defend your employment decisions in court, it is
unlike every other aspect of our legal system. The burden of proof is not on the
shoulders of the accuser; rather, the organization has to PROVE that protected class
information (e.g., age, race, gender) was not used in the hiring decision.
Consequently, using tools, like social media, that have this kind of information readily
available is risky business. You need to be able to provide compelling evidence that
you in NO WAY used those data to inform your decision. This can be hard to do.

Conclusion
In sum, even though social media information is often easily at our fingertips and it
can provide a unique glimpse into the personal lives of candidates, using that
information for decision-making purposes may not be wise. I am a human resource
consultant, not an employment lawyer, but, to me, the risks seem to outweigh the
benefits. When it comes to social media, I would advise that just because you can,
doesn’t mean you should.

Amie Lawrence, Ph.D. is the Director of Global Innovation at PSI

and an expert in the design, development, and validation of psychological
assessment tools. She runs an innovation lab that is responsible for establishing
PSI’s assessment technology roadmap and strategy. An integral member of PSI
since 2000, Amie has led the development of numerous global assessments,
including personality, situational judgment, cognitive, and interactive work
simulations.