By Tim Ferguson, 28 March 2007 12:26
NEWS
Employers are increasingly checking out online personal information about candidates when making recruitment decisions.
Net reputations built up through online activities - such as blogging, posting videos to YouTube or using social networks such as FaceBook and MySpace – can have a significant effect when applying for a job, according to a report from business social network, Viadeo.
According to the research, one in five employers finds information about candidates on the internet and 59 per cent of those said it influences recruitment decisions.
A quarter of HR decision-makers said they had rejected candidates based on personal information found online.
But despite this, most people are unaware of the effect their 'net reputation' can have on their job prospects.
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♦ Web 2.0
♦ Mash-ups
Examples of online information that has been shown to create negative information include MySpace sites that reveal excessive drinking or disrespect for work.
One survey respondent said their company rejected a candidate based on activities that "did not fit ethically" into the organisation.
But information found online can also work positively when applying for a job, with 13 per cent of HR decision-makers having decided to recruit people in light of what they found.
Positive information could include achievements not already known, internet skills demonstrated through a website and extra skills not revealed by a corporate application form.
Peter Cunningham, Viadeo's UK country manager, said the results should be a wake-up call to anyone who has ever posted personal information online. "The rise of search engines such as Google means that potential employers are never more than a few clicks away from information about you," he added in a statement.
The research surveyed more than 2,000 consumers and more than 600 employers via an online interview.
Comments
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1. anonymous
What does this say about the companies that they cannot be bothered to interview properly?
That they make decisions based on vague interpretation of information that may not be accurate or even about the same person (because they have the same name) or worse still a name that they misspelt.
Maybe I should make an ethical judgement about a company and their senior management (their political affiliations’ including their immediate family) based on the information I find on the internet regardless of whether its true or not. A sound unprofessional doesn’t it? Would you want to work for such a company
This is just lazy decision making because they don't want to make the effect to assess people properly. Perhaps if they put as much effect in being ethical themselves, then they would not have to use so much PR.
I am surprised that silicon has not thought through all sides to this, not asking those they interviewed if they had considered the impact (legal and otherwise) of their methodology.
2. Russ
Wow, that's pretty scary!
I guess I should expect employers to do it, but I'd hate to think stuff I've put up for a laugh could influence my job prospects.
E.g. one pic of a drunken night out on MySpace makes you look like a degenerate, when it could have been a one off special occasion and you hardly ever drink.
The things you put up online are usually extremes of your behaviour (who would post a pic of themselves sitting at a desk working hard?) - weird to think it could affect your prospects.
You could use it to your advantage I suppose - anything under your proper name should be respectable and all drunken pics under an alias
3. Jeremy Wickins
This needs serious consideration, as there is a possibility that the employers doing this are acting illegally. Depending on when these data are accessed, there may be breaches of sex, race, and age discrimination legislation. This is aside from the ethical issue - what a person does outside work, especially before they begin working for an employer, is none of the employer's business (literally and metaphorically), and morally any searches like this should not be conducted covertly, anyway.
4. Karen Challinor
good job I run my own company isn't it, what with all the things I post in here
5. anonymous
Well done those companies for thinking outside of the box. It's a fair cop if they do a search on you and don't like what they find.