Hiring and the MySpace - Facebook conundrum
About a month ago, there was quite a bit of chatter on ASAE & The Center's membership listserver on researching the social media profiles of job applicants. (Any ASAE member can access it by logging into the website and going to the listserver archive -- leave the search field blank and look at messages beginning July 1, 2008.)
I think there were some responses that went too far, such as weighting their online presence even more than their interview. And there were some that were what I would consider absurd, such as using their profiles as a factor in a decision being a violation of the applicant's privacy. But I thought the bulk of those who responded hit the mark.
I think the dividing line of that gray area in the middle is the degree to which people make their nonwork lives public. There were some on the listservers who advocated that it shows poor judgment to let it all hang out on such sights, which reflects poorly on the applicant. Of course there are limits. An obsession with pornography, for example, should set off alarms for the hiring manager. However, I believe these people are looking at this through their own biased lens. A lens that sees a professional persona and a nonwork persona. But I believe that the idea of work-life balance is more and more giving way to just balance--meaning the lines between work and nonwork are becoming less and less structured by time and place. We are who we are, without separate work and life personae—and I believe our organizations are more productive, more enriching, more diverse, and more fulfilling because of it.
My advice is: job seekers—be aware of how others (prospective employers) might see you based on what they can find out about you online. If you're comfortable with that, then don't worry about getting passed over because somebody doesn't like what they find, you don't want to work for them anyway. For employers—be aware of the assumptions you are making based on what you find, and be doubly aware of what biases you have that might preclude diverse and inclusive hiring practices.
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Comments
GREAT post Scott! In another 5 years I suspect we will look back and find it amusing that this was even a topic for conversation.
Posted by: Greg Fine,CAE | August 6, 2008 5:09 PM
I think job seekers should be forewarned, bias notwithstanding, if you come across as an idiot in your online personas it most likely WILL impact the hiring decision. As for what qualifies as idiocy... you know it when you see it.
Posted by: Dan Backus | August 7, 2008 10:46 AM
Hold it, Scott. You don't really think a job interview produces a better insight into a person's demeanor, abilities and style than observing their interactions with others, do you? I think job interviews are theater. Interviewees only say what they think the interviewers want to hear.
What people SAY THEY DO and what people ACTUALLY DO are very different things. That's why I place more emphasis on observing than I do on interviewing. Yes, I still do interviews, but I do them differently.
Put another way, which would you prefer as a manager? You could observe a person's habits and interactions for a month and then make a hiring decision OR you could ask them some questions across a table over the course of a few hours and then make a decision.
Posted by: Ben Martin, CAE | August 7, 2008 2:34 PM
What's going to happen when all your applicants "have a past" online? You just won't hire people? Are a few ancient college Facebook photos of Jenny at age 19 smoking a cigarette, holding a beer and standing with a friend's hand cupped around her unmentionables really indicative of her judgment and what kind of an employee she is now that she's 35 and it's the year 2024?
This too shall pass.
Posted by: Mark Forstneger | August 7, 2008 5:48 PM
I would use their online info to help confirm your instincts from your interview. Depending on the job, if you didn't have a Facebook page I might not even interview you.
Posted by: Matt Baehr | August 8, 2008 8:56 AM
Thank you all for the comments.
Matt - I think it's more nuanced than that. Rather than confirming instincts, I think it's adding more to the picture, to the universe of information you're going to use to make a hiring decision. And my opinion is I don't know if I'd exclude somebody because I didn't see something I was hoping to see online. There could be many, many reasons why someone doesn't have a Facebook page that wouldn't exclude someone from a job where you might expect them to have one.
Ben - Yeah, Ben, I have to admit I DO think you get more out of an interview than you could possibly get online. It's not a perfect system, and I'm an HR person's nightmare -- I base hiring decisions on my gut, not empirical data. But if someone's a good enough actor to fool me, then I'll fire them in three or six months when they don't do the job they said they'd do. It's not ideal, but it's not a perfect system.
Mark - I might get in trouble for saying this, but middle school bonus points to you for writing "cupped around her unmentionables." But no double standards here, ok? It could just as easily been "James" and his unmentionables.
Posted by: Scott Briscoe | August 8, 2008 10:32 AM
It seems to me the conversations on this topic, both on the original listserve question and here in the comments, are focused on the wrong things. Does anyone really care that someone drinks and has a lot of friends and gets into the occasional wild scrape? We've all been there and frankly to me it would make the person seem more interesting, not less (at least for an entry-level position....over time, people should "clean up" their publicly-available personal profiles as they move up through the professional ranks).
The bigger questions revolve around people who post to their blog or their Facebook profile or their "tweets" or whatever they are, about their jobs/careers/organizations. If someone posts (in a publicly-available manner) about how much they hate their job, how frustrating their boss is, and most damningly, how they have a huge amount of work to do but are instead sitting around playing on Twitter --- does anyone really, honestly believe that these things should not or will not be considered by an interviewer? (And I'm not speaking hypothetically here. These things are all over the place, including the association world. I've found them when I've interviewed people.)
People should really use common sense when posting anything, to anything.
Posted by: Kevin | August 8, 2008 11:53 AM
Common sense... another thing that seems sorely lacking today?
I have a couple of friends who when they take over the government are going to create a Bureau of Common Sense to break through all the clutter that is all around us. They have my vote. (Or is that support for the revolution?)
Posted by: Scott Briscoe | August 8, 2008 1:02 PM
I also rely heavily on my gut reaction in all decision-making. Although I've had some cases where my gut reaction was wrong and I thankfully ignored it.
I will stand by my experience without reservation: Observing a person's online history is more revealing than a job interview.
@Matt: Agreed.
Posted by: Ben Martin, CAE | August 8, 2008 3:51 PM