You may wonder why social media accounts are listed on background checks and whether they are relevant. In many cases, the candidate can delete or alter these profiles. Regardless of the reason, social media background checks are still a necessary tool for protecting the company.

It Can Tell An Employee’s Personality

Many employers check applicants’ social media accounts to determine their honesty. Therefore, if your social media accounts have been deleted, it could raise concerns about your honesty. In addition, employers may still find these accounts on search engines and people’s search websites. 

Social media content changes constantly. It is easy for candidates to delete their posts or make changes to their profiles. Virtually every social media account allows users to edit their information.

Social Media Presence

Employers often review candidates’ social media presence when applying for a new job. These profiles can reveal information about a candidate, including past convictions. Firstly, it’s essential to understand that social media content changes constantly. Your candidate’s information on social media accounts can change or even disappear at any time. Most social media accounts allow users to update their information, and some, like Snapchat, even delete posts after a specific time. This makes it challenging to keep up with the news posted by a candidate.

Social media accounts are public information and should not be considered private information. Although this information can give you more insight about a candidate, it may be irrelevant to their work for your organization. For example, a candidate may have followed political parties on social media, but these do not necessarily indicate that they’re qualified for a job. In addition, checking social media accounts could lead to a lawsuit if the candidate claims they were a victim of discrimination or other misconduct.

Helpful In Hiring Process

While social media can be beneficial for hiring purposes, employers should consider their privacy practices before using them to screen potential employees. For example, the data posted on these platforms may contain biographical information about people, violating laws protecting people’s privacy. Moreover, specific information published on these sites may contain sensitive information about people’s sexual orientation or religion. These types of information may also open a company up to discrimination lawsuits.

Although social media use has increased in the United States, some employees, students, and job applicants have raised privacy concerns about employers’ requests for personal information. Some have argued that these requests violate their privacy. Still, some employers say this information is necessary to protect their company’s proprietary information, comply with federal financial regulations, and prevent legal liabilities.

Time-consuming Process

Conducting a background check on an applicant can be very time-consuming, especially if you don’t have access to social media. Many individuals have multiple accounts on different social networks. Some of these accounts are public, while others are private. As a result, employers aren’t able to screen what they can’t see, which makes the process of background checking on social media much less reliable.

One of the main issues with social media background checks is that there are many false positives. While it’s easy to find profiles of people in your social network, it’s much more difficult to find a candidate on other sites. As a result, hiring managers can spend hours matching candidate profiles with fake profiles.

Risks

While social media can offer insight into someone’s past, there are risks to using social media for background checks. Social media can expose information that is not always accurate, such as a person’s sexual orientation, health conditions, or genetic information. In addition, it can damage a company’s reputation. This is why it is essential to conduct background checks before hiring a candidate.

Before doing a social media background check, you must have written permission from the applicant and comply with FCRA guidelines. Another option is to hire a third-party company to perform the social media background check for you. A third-party company will scrub protected characteristics from final reports. Since third-party companies aren’t directly involved in hiring, they will not be vested in your decision.