Modernizing Your Pre-Hire Process? Start with Social Media.

How do you know whether to trust the info that you get from a potential new hire? Personal references are biased, criminal background checks are often inaccurate, and hiring blind in 2018 just shouldn't be an option.

You need to adopt a different, more modern approach if you want to gather more relevant information about a candidate's true personality. This is why social media screening is becoming more prevalent. These routine checks are helping to keep workplaces more safe and efficient, allowing HR to focus more on operations than conflicts.

More Effective Than Regular Background Checks

There are a number of pertinent reasons why online investigations are a much more effective tool than the average simple background check. For one, the way a person communicates on social media is less filtered and more indicative of their true personality than can be determined from perusing their record of employment, or even by looking at their criminal history.

Have you ever hired someone that looks good on paper but turns out to be a nightmare for your office culture? Avoiding disruptive or downright harmful personalities can make a profound impact on your business's productivity. Social media screening is the most effective way to identify "Soft problems" like sexist jokes or anger issues before they make it into the office.

Beware In-House Social Media Screening

More than 70% of employers already use social media in a hiring decision, according to a 2016 CareerBuilder survey, and most of these employers admit that their HR team conducts social media screening in-house. This cannot be emphasized enough: if anyone involved in a hiring decision screens a candidate's online presence before employment, you are at an extreme risk for violating FCRA screening laws.

It is impossible to review social media without near-instant exposure to a whole host of protected class information, so while it's tempting to explore the veritable gold mine of information available to you, resist the temptation and call a 3rd party screening provider instead. Not only can they identify problematic behavior faster and cheaper than your HR team, but they can do so while eliminating the risk of discrimination claims.