Do you search social media of a potential employee?

[Japanese2024]

A friend of mine works in HR. Lately I have found her to be very gossipy/talking badly about other friends etc and it's getting my back up.

Today she told me they won't be hiring someone because they searched her Facebook in the office and it's all about being drunk/hungover/badly spelt words etc. She was talking about it like gossip, saying she can't believe someone would post like that. Surely that's not OK, do people actually not hire someone for a private search of their social media? The job is with kids and my friend seems to think the woman shouldn't post that but it's her private business!

Yabu - friend is right. This is quite normal to do

Yanbu - someone hiring shouldn't judge on social media

They told us this in school over 10 years ago. Your friend is being unprofessional in the way she is talking about people though.

How ridiculous, tbh, when you are the one failing to distinguish between their own lives and their work lives.

This is why my social media accounts are locked down and my settings are super private. I don't share anything personal about myself or my family anyway so there's nothing incriminating.

Petty

I am not HR, but a manger involved in recruitment. I do sometimes look on social media. Partying wouldn’t necessarily put me off.
Things which puts me off -
Having very open social media account as I see it as bad judgement
Extreme political views. I once rejected someone who was a very vocal Brexiteer on social media.
i just didn’t think he would fit into an international team.
MLM in spare time

It's not ridiculous at all.

If you are content to let absolutely anyone and everyone have full and free access to your social media, then it shows questionable judgement at best, and makes me wonder if you even understand concepts of privacy, discretion, and security.

Oh, and just to be clear, there are certain roles I hire for that require people to shut down all identifiable social media in any case, so it's actually in the applicant's own interest to show that they understand the implications of the role they are applying for, and take care of that pre-emptively.

I don’t blame employers for doing it I would do the same. As long as your friend hasn’t mentioned names or incriminating details I wouldn’t get het up about it.

'Extreme' political views - that were shared by more than 50% of the UK public?

My social media is open.

I understand perfectly the idea of "privacy, discretion and security"; I don't post (or comment) anything that is not fit for public consumption with those three objectives in mind for me and the people in my life.

Regardless, I never, ever mention anything about my work. Ever.

(Job: cyber security)

Mines all locked down but I don't post much on mine.

Working with kids? I would 100% expect a check of all social media they could find.

If HR can find you, then parents can find you, and the kids will hunt you down if they're old enough.

You don't need to be squeaky clean but it's naive to post drunk pics even from years ago and not think it might not look good to potential employers - on an open profile.

Check your settings, change your name and for God's sake have a cull of all the 'look at me being a dickhead' posts.

Isn't this an invasion of privacy though?

If someone had pictures or comments that would impact t heir employment chances adversely most sensible people would hide these. However people may make public political views, disability, fact they have children, mental health problems etc. which may be held against them by unscrupulous employers. There are also pictures taken by others without the persons consent that may appear on the internet more generally.

Surely really we should be relying on references and DBS only? You have no proof someone hasn't accessed a persons account anyway?

It's not "private" in the first place if it's completely open to public viewing, so there is nothing to be invaded.

OK it's not an invasion of privacy granted but doesn't it just show someone is naive about profile settings rather than singling them out as the person not to employ? Other candidates may have other slightly less than desirable characteristics they have just decided not to publicise them.

I agree sensible approach is simply to change setting bits in an interesting debate.

I don't use any SM apart from anonymous forums so what happens if they can't find anything about you at all

Keeping Children Safe in Education (statutory guidance) requires that schools carry out social media checks as part of the recruitment process.

Perfectly normal

Someone's social media isn't their private business.

Our clients will absolutely search for us, so it needs to be locked down.

However people may make public political views, disability, fact they have children, mental health problems etc. which may be held against them by unscrupulous employers. There are also pictures taken by others without the persons consent that may appear on the internet more generally

With respect, if someone posts publicly, then that's the choice they make.

As for tagged posts or photos....its very easy to highlight those and delete the tag

Of course it IS possible that our photos can be posted without tags and therefore without us knowing.

This.

And we also know that parents and children search you up.

I had a child tell me last year that their mum had seen photos/videos of me on fb doing my hobby. My fb is private so I can only think they found photos of me on someone else's public profile that I'd been tagged in.

You can't be seen to be doing anything that calls your professionalism or standing in the community to be called into question.

She shouldn't be 'gossiping' about it though.

It's not really about what views someone holds so much as it is about common sense and not sharing your entire life on the internet for the world to see.

With my org specifically it's not in itself a bar to employment. I've hired people before who have open profiles, but only once it has been explained to them that isn't compatible with the role they are being offered and they've agreed to lock down or go anonymous.

Similar.

I rather doubt the competence of a HR flunky who thinks a few pics of my marathons and mountain climbing mean I would share crime scene photos, upload patient records or discuss military movements on there.

Nobody has said that though. 🙄 Marathons are pretty obviously the kind of thing a company wouldn't mind its representatives posting about - plenty of people will post about things like that on LinkedIn.

A PP summarised it neatly: "You don't need to be squeaky clean but it's naive to post drunk pics even from years ago and not think it might not look good to potential employers - on an open profile."

It's not about hiding your normal everyday hobbies, but if you post content that wouldn't reflect well in a professional context, it's sensible to keep it private. (Or expect clients/potential employers to judge you on them).

Your use of the word "flunky" really does say a lot about you though.