Innovative screening is a crucial part of hiring for property management companies and restaurants. It helps them find great tenants and trustworthy employees. Many HR or recruiting teams check candidates’ social media profiles and posts before hiring.
It Saves Time
Employers and hiring managers spend much time trying to find the best candidates. They are looking for red flags like racial or other offensive comments, violent behavior, and sexually explicit content. The good news is that excellent social media background checks can save a company money, time, and stress in the long run. Many of these tools and third-party screening agencies can perform social media checks legally by only pulling public information, such as posts, photos, friends, and activity on social platforms. It is important to note that some information, such as marital status, political affiliations, religious affiliations, and age, cannot be searched, as these are protected under data privacy laws. While snooping on an applicant’s social media may give you some insights into their character, it will also make your potential hire feel burdened, judged, untrusted, irritated, or even censored. This will sour any relationship you try to build with them and could lead to a negative perception of your brand and company. However, the right tools and services can eliminate this issue by enabling you to screen for various detrimental behaviors to your business. This will help you save time and money and ensure a safe workplace for your employees and the communities you serve.
It Reduces Risk
The ability to perform social media checks on potential candidates helps to reduce the risk of bringing on employees who may pose a security or reputational threat. It also allows for more thorough background checks when compared to traditional methods. This can help save time and resources for both the company and the candidate and avoid unnecessary stress or hassle. In addition, using a social media screening service can help to eliminate any biases or prejudice that may be present in the hiring process. It is easy for hiring managers to fall prey to their own beliefs or biases during the interview process. However, a professional third party can ensure that the review is conducted fairly and objectively. This will help to mitigate any potential legal disputes that could arise down the line. Social media screening has its downsides, however. For example, many candidates find it intrusive to have their social media profiles searched by a potential employer. They feel they are being invaded into their personal space and judged by things unrelated to their professional abilities or work ethic.
Moreover, it is not easy to accurately assess a candidate’s personality and character through their online profile. This is especially true for quasi-private platforms that require registration to access, which can be challenging to search with standard web tools.
It Increases Productivity
Aside from background checks and credit reports, innovative screening helps companies evaluate a candidate’s social media footprint. This allows the company to assess a prospective hire’s character, professional reputation, and online persona beyond what they can learn from their resume and in-person interview. This provides a more detailed picture of the candidate and helps hiring teams make more informed decisions.
However, it is essential to note that social media screening should only be done with the help of a professional service. This ensures that only information relevant to the job is retrieved and does not violate laws on discrimination or intolerance. This is vital because it is not uncommon for an adverse finding in one platform to carry over to other platforms if the hiring process does not consider the context of the post or comment.
In addition, employers need to avoid forming prejudices about candidates based on their personal posts or public musings. This may backfire and cause the candidate to feel burdened, judged, or untrusted, which does not bode well for the relationship or employee engagement. Using a professional service also means you can screen a potential hire’s profile across multiple platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. This helps you determine if they are active on community forums, writing blogs on Medium, or even have an extensive portfolio on design-based platforms. This is much faster and more effective than sending random friend requests to candidates or looking through their photos and public musings.
It Boosts Customer Satisfaction
Rather than sifting through a mountain of applicants, top-notch innovative screening services are designed to quickly weed out good candidates from bad ones. And they do this while minimizing risks and remaining within legal boundaries. This is especially crucial for companies in dynamic sectors such as restaurant and hospitality, where turnover can be costly. Innovative screening also helps to streamline operations and make ongoing employee assessments much more accessible, ensuring that the right people are always in place. To ensure that an intelligent screen process is effective and legally sound, creating a clear policy and communicating this clearly to your staff is essential. You must inform candidates that a search will be conducted and explain that only public information will be checked (like photos, friends, posts, etc.). It’s also important to remember that social media searches can backfire if done incorrectly. For example, if a candidate is known for having strong opinions on animal rights or environmental activism and this information comes up during a check, it could violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act and open your company to legal liability. That’s why working with experts who understand social media vetting and can help you design a program that meets your organization’s unique needs is essential.