I fully understand the fear that businesses have regarding using Social Media tools for candidate search and evaluation; however it’s important to get past these fears by putting real, honest and transparent processes in place.

These processes can’t be fully explained in a quick blog post; however using (all) Social Media systems for candidate search and evaluation is important because of the powerful search tools available to recruiters today.

I believe that documenting these processes and teaching (& monitoring) your staff to use them appropriately can mitigate the risk and increase the benefits. Share the processes (high level) with your candidates so that they are all aware of how your business use these tools is also important to help mitigate the risks & increase the benefits.

One of the biggest fears is that a recruiter or hiring manager will learn information that could be used in a discriminatory way about a candidate thru Social Media. How do they handle this when a candidate is recommended for a job by an employee? If they want to know useful & relevant information about a candidate thru their Social Media Profiles – consider having a non-hiring employee review the Social Media Profiles and report back the relevant information needed, sans the potential discriminatory info. (this is only one idea – not the only answer)

In summary – LinkedIn, as well as Social Media in general, is a powerful set of tools for Candidate Search.  Guidelines & Procedures, Policies, Training and Monitoring can enable businesses to use Social Media Profiles to recruit high quality candidates without the risk of litigation.

Do you want help with this – contact Teddy Burriss