Don't be a recruitment creep: How to screen social like a butterfly

Social media screening has shaken things up like a Polaroid picture when it comes to recruitment.

Pretty much everyone loves sharing snaps and statuses with their nearest and dearest these days. This has created a mega-supply of new data for us to explore.

It might seem a tidge frivolous – even creepy for recruiters to go nosing around these sources. But, it's all in the public domain and social media screening can tell you whether a candidate is the right fit - you just need to be careful not to cross the line.

Let's have a li'l look at social media screening and how you can do it without being a creep.

Err, where would I even look!?

These are some of the social media channels than people just love right now. Find out what type of info you can get and whether candidates will be cool with you taking a look:

1. LinkedIn: It's a professional network, so people will expect you to take a peek and spend time crafting a respectable, work-orientated profile. Creepy search rating = 1
2. Twitter: More personal than professional, but people are used to tweets being looked at by the media and the rest of the world. Take a look and learn about their personality, interests and how they want to be seen. Creepy search rating = 3
3. Facebook: Definitely more of a personal one (even though it's muscling in on the recruitment scene). Check out what they get up to and how they communicate with others. Creepy search rating = 5
4. Instagram: It's not just personal, it's also very visual. You might learn a little, but they've probably filtered their feed to the max so it might not paint a true picture. Creepy search rating = 11

So, a whole loada '1' and a touch of '2' and '3' is generally the way to go when it comes to social media screening. Leave '4', unless you're sure it's worth it and you don't mind looking at a few pouting faces.

How to smash social media screening

These are our golden rules for social media screening:

Know what you're looking for

These are the questions you're trying to answer:

1. Is there anything inappropriate that outright removes them from the process?
2. Do their interests and persona suggest they'll fit your company culture?

Choosing a candidate who's the right fit will help them stay productive and get on with clients or folks around the office. You can also guesstimate how they'll adapt, whether they'll be ambitious and how long they might stick around.

Look for trends. Are they always bickering/online during work hours/out on work nights? You'll feel like Sherlock Holmes by the time you've worked it all out!

Be seriously see-through

Let candidates know which channels you're looking at, what you're searching for and what you would consider unacceptable.

It's all public data, but some people aren't that clued up on privacy laws. So, try to let them know BEFORE you get started.

Choose the right person to search

Pick someone who knows the role inside-out as they can spot specific personality traits that might be good/bad for a particular job.

Also, choose someone who's similar to the type of person you want to hire (age, gender, previous experience etc.). Life experience counts for a lot when it comes to understanding others.

Come up with a process

You could spend forever on social media screening, and still get accused of bias at the end. So, you need a process that says:

• Which channels you'll look at/cross-reference
• How far you'll go back
• How you'll give everyone a fair chance
• How you'll use this info (interview data, pre-interview screening etc.)

Get all this sussed, and you'll be a social media screening pro!