Social Networking Websites’ Role on Choosing Job Candidates

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Social Networking Websites, at present, are used mainly for personal consumption, for entertainment, and for communication. But since then, it has been seen that these websites we access for entertainment will play an important part on businesses especially in the human resource department. The recruiting process has slowly been transformed by social media. HR managers or recruiters can now match candidates with their open positions through these sites.

A study has been conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com about the companies who used these sites to screen job applicants. According to the study, about 45% of the employers who participated in this research use Social Networking Sites in choosing who to hire. This percentage doubled last year’s survey wherein 22% of the supervisors research about potential hires in sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. Facebook is the most popular online destination that employers utilize to do their online screening. Linkedln comes next, and then myspace. And 7 percent of the employers follow their prospects in twitter.

According to that same study, 35 percent of the employers found reasons in the social networking sites that caused them not to hire their candidates. 53% of the them wont hire applicants having provocative images, videos or information on their account. 44% of them won’t hire applicants, who have in their account images of them with boozes and drugs. 35% won’t hire candidates who bad-mouth their former employers. As cute as they may seem, smileys is a no-no for employers since 14% of them won’t hire candidates who put smileys in direct communications. 29% won’t hire candidates who showed poor communication skills. 26% of the employers won’t hire applicants who made discriminatory comments. 24% won’t hire those applicants who lied about their qualification. And last but not the least, candidates who shared confidential information about their previous employer won’t be hired by 20% of the employers.

Some employers hire job seekers who have the social media sites advertise their skills, expertise and experiences. 18 percent of the employers said that they found contents in social networking sites that made them hire their candidates. 50% of the employers hire candidates whose profile provided that the candidate has a personality that fits the institution. 39% of them hires candidates whose profiles supports the candidate’s professional qualifications. 38% hires creative candidates. 35% hires candidates having good communication skills. 33% hires a well-rounded candidate. 19% of the employers hire candidates having other peoples’ positive comments in their account. And 15% of the employers hire candidates who received awards and accolades.

Social Networking Sites has indeed changed the ways employers choose their employees. It is safe to say that, in order for the job seekers to remain on the solid ground, they should, before applying for a job, clean their accounts since employers will always choose candidates who best fit the job and the organization.