Question

Should the use of social media in hiring decisions or firing decisions be allowed? Some states are passing legislation to prevent employers from asking potential new hires for their social media passwords/account information. What about employees who post discriminatory statements on social media, even when they are trying to be funny- should an employer be able to consider that? Where do we cross the line? Is anything off-limits in this area when it comes to what your employer can consider?

Answer 1

There are occasions and places even in the private working place when we may desire “reasonable expectations of privacy”. For example, at the cafeteria, washroom, or when using personal e-mails at the office place through personal mobile phones , etc.

I do not think it is fair to research an applicant’s social media profile other than if it is an official profile especially intended for the job and recruitment purpose such as LinkedIn. The reason being, the personal aspects of an applicant might create a biased impression of the applicant on the minds of the recruiters which is certainly not desirable in a job recruitment process. The recruiter needs to maintain a neutral stand, free from any sort of biasness, in order to recruit a candidate based upon his professional worth to the Organization and hence to uncover information about a candidate through his social media profiles is rather an unethical approach.

Social media such as LinkedIn provides an excellent platform to search for the jobs and that could be used in favor of both, the employers as well as the job aspirants. The employers can come in touch with relevant job aspirants and therefore it would ease their process of lengthy physical document screening processes. On the part of the job aspirants as well, they can directly get in touch with the employers and other relevant persons in an Organization to inquire about the vacancy in the system and accordingly going ahead in applying for the same without resorting to the formal lengthy procedure of job interviews. In fact, even for the employers who are urgently searching for replacing the current employees for whatsoever reason, social media platform can play a significant role in supporting the same.

However, on the flip side, social media websites which are not meant to serve the professional purpose but only to facilitate a medium to interact with each other socially, can backfire the recruitment process if the employers choose to resort to the unfair means of uncovering information about the candidate on such platforms and forming a biased opinion thereupon. For example, an employer discovers that a certain job aspirant is found of ABC Band group, something which the employer highly dislikes, then accordingly, the employer may choose not to shortlist the candidate or select him even though the candidate’s personal liking for the band has got nothing to do with the job.

I think social media sites like Facebook itself is a highly popular Social media tool but gives sort of irrelevant information that could be value by an HR Recruiter. For eg., the ‘About me’ section of the Facebook user’s profile page, contains vague information about an individual in terms of his Professional worth and skills. Moreover, the Community or the groups that interest the Users may also not be of much concern to an HR recruiter because the relation to professionalism would be limited. The Family and Relationships and other events in life, are so personal in nature that the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 anyway prohibits any discrimination based on those grounds. On the other side, LinkedIn is highly professional social media tool that concentrates mainly on User’s work profile and CV that could be of use to the HR recruiters.

I like to draw a line between my personal and professional life and certainly the key to my personal life cannot rest in the hands of my Employers. Moreover, even the Federal laws of the Country safeguards every citizen of the nation to enjoy the right to privacy. Therefore, even my dream place employer do not have the right to intrigue into my personal space. I may have a complicated personal relationship with my people, I may not be willing to share all my photographs that I usually share with my friends but with my Boss, I may have some strong status updates that are meant to be read by only some selected friends on my friend list, I may be checking-in at various places, movements of which, I may not be comfortable sharing with my Boss or colleagues at the workplace, etc. and believe that it is an unethical practice as well.