'Social media can scupper job prospects'

As recruitment agencies
increasingly check
candidates’ social media
profiles as part of the
hiring process, job
candidates are well advised
to think twice about their
social media conduct.
“I believe many potential
candidates, or employees,
may still be naïve enough
to speak out spontaneously
without considering the
consequences, or that they
have responsibility to their
employer,” said Dr Lynn
Ribton-Turner, managing
director of Ribton-Turner
Recruitment (RTR).
She commented that
recent events had put
social media usage on the
radar of recruiters and
cautioned job seekers to
be careful about making
radical comments on public
platforms.
RTR very seldom
checked social media
platforms but had
increased its usage of
business networking
site LinkedIn to identify
potential candidates, she
added.
A human resources
(HR) consultant who has
handled several CCMA
cases based on social media
misconduct told FTW that
he checked candidates'
social media profiles as
a matter of course. “It
gives me insight into
the individuals before I
interview them,” he said.
He added that it was
legal to do so if the profile
was open to the public –
and in some cases social
media profiles had changed
his mind about hiring a
candidate or putting the
candidate forward for a
job.
“I once saw a candidate
who had published seminude
photographs of
herself. She was very
pregnant and had a bottle
of alcohol in one hand and
a cigarette in the other,” he
said.
An HR manager who
works for a company
that conducts business in
the freight and logistics
industry also said
she regularly checked
candidates’ social media
profiles before hiring them.
“We like to get a feel for the
person as a whole and it
gives us an idea of whether
they would fit in with the
culture of our company,”
she said.
“Furthermore, we
have often discovered
discrepancies in what they
have disclosed during
the interview process, or
discovered inappropriate
photos, which has made us
think twice before hiring
them.”
She stressed the need for
discretion though, adding:
“We would never reveal to
a candidate that we had
viewed their profile, nor
would we disclose that one
of the reasons for not hiring
them was related to what
we had discovered online.”