Screening Social Media
Benefit of employers screening social media of potential employees.
A rising ethical issue on social network checking is whether or not it is an invasion of privacy (Brown, 2011). For good reason, applicants feel uncomfortable with their possible bosses seeing all their posts on twitter and other social media. However, under certain circumstances, this is not considered an invasion of privacy. There are very simple solutions to keep an employer from seeing a user’s personal social media posts. Social networking sites provide privacy settings that enable users the ability to keep the general public from seeing more private posts. “The profile owner has control over most of the information presented, and can adjust the privacy settings to manage how much of that information is made public” (Brown, 2011).
Of course there are some loopholes here where employers may see information about an applicant’s social media by seeing that applicant tagged in another photo or video. It is ultimately up to the user to make sure that their personal information is not leaking out to the Internet. For scenario purposes, imagine that the user’s settings are set so that only friends can see what the user has posted. Next, the employer decides to send a friend request to get into that exclusive group. The user has the option to accept the friend request and block their employer from seeing their posts without the employer knowing what happened. Also keep in mind that not everything that is not directly supportive of work will have a negative effect on the user. “Hiring managers and human resources departments have to make a careful, determined decision as to whether information found online is relevant to the candidates’ qualifications for the job.” The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) helps secure the privacy of potential employees while justifying the act of screening their social media (Ebnet, 2012). In 2010, the FCRA introduced a third party to for pre-employment screening. Although these third parties are not a requirement of all employers, they are established as the employer’s tool for social networking screening. This works out for the applicant’s want for privacy, as the third party will only report job-related content to the employer. The third parties work within the boundaries of the FCRA which means they must also give notice to the applicants before they begin screening (Ebnet, 2012). By utilizing the privacy settings and searching for companies that employ third parties, privacy is not an issue. Here is an explanation by Andy Harrison, Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Precise Hire.