I just got back from an HR conference. Indeed, an exciting time was had by all.
One of the more interesting lectures at this conference concerned social networking and hiring best practices. Apparently, most of my colleagues use Facebooks and the Google to screen potential hires. Since your profile is considered public domain, there’s nothing illegal about using the Internet to conduct surreptitious research. I know that the perils of social networking isn’t exactly breaking news, but I hadn’t realized how many companies were using Facebook as a screening tool.
I’m not sure if social networking research is a best practice for my industry. Without stoners, boozehounds, watsteoids, hippies, freaks, geeks, and weirdoes, the service industry might cease to exist. Personally, I don’t think there is necessarily a correlation between what employees do in their free time and their job performance, particularly for entry-level service positions.
Public service announcement: if you’re looking for a job, a shot of you puffing your six-footer might not be the best choice for a profile picture. Even a grocery store might think twice before hiring you.
21/05/2010 at 10:25 am Permalink
Now you got me thinking and I had to go and check the appropriateness of my facebook photos. Except for a glut of goofy photos of myself at the bars there are surprisingly few that might raise the eyebrows of a potential employer, especially considering my day to day activities. There are no photos of illicit drug use, only a few of excessive alcohol consumption, and one where I’m naked but it’s only a photo from the knees down so no problem there. In turn, as a photographer, I have plenty of incriminating photos of other people but while I am a fan of pictures of people at their worst I (mostly) don’t upload them for everyone to see.