Using Social Media When Making Hiring Decisions

June 22, 2010

Picture this… you are interviewing candidates for a position, and decide on two finalists. While checking references — which have been provided to you by the candidates — you also plug each candidate’s name into Google and pull up Candidate #1’s Twitter page, which reveals that she is 3 months pregnant. Does this affect your hiring decision? Legally (and ethically), it shouldn’t.

Social networking has thrown another legal wrench into the hiring process. While we all want to find out about candidates we may bring into our expansion stage companies, we must not forget how easy it is to pull up information on candidates that is irrelevant to his/her performance in the workplace. When providing recruiting support for your company, you must be careful not to make hiring decisions for or against a candidate based on information acquired through social networks, such as the candidate’s religion, race, political views, sexual orientation, or even things that may not seem as personal to the candidate, such as their music taste and hobbies.

Even without intentionally doing so, many people may find it difficult to make hiring decisions without keeping the information they have gathered in mind. So how can you avoid getting yourself into legal trouble over information found through social networking? One way is to avoid searching for candidates on social networking sites all together. Another way is to have someone who does not provide recruiting support at your company conduct a search on a candidate, and to have them only report back that information which is not considered “protected”.

Inc. published an interesting article about this topic a few days ago called, “Is It Legal To Use Social Network Data When Hiring?“, and suggested the latter as a way to avoid a legal snafu.

For additional information on legal issues surrounding hiring and firing when it comes to social networking for your expansion stage company, check out the links below:

The Pros and Cons of Recruiting Via Social Media
Social Networks and Employment Law (Check pages 15-30)
Federal Laws Prohibiting Job Discrimination Questions and Answers

VP, Human Capital

<strong>Diana Martz</strong> is Vice President, Human Capital at<a href="http://www.ta.com/">TA Associates</a>. She was previously the Director of Talent at OpenView.