social media screening

Social media background screening can protect brand reputation

February 16, 2017 by Social Intel

Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at the possible implications of a bad hire. We began by exploring financial consequences, and also considered threats to workplace safety. Today we’ll complete the series by focusing on the impact that bad hires can have on your company’s brand reputation.

Social media posts can lead to bad publicity

Brand reputation is more important these days than ever before. A company with a negative image may experience disgruntled clients and decreased revenue. In addition, unfavorable brand reputation can be detrimental when it comes to recruiting job candidates. One 2013 survey found that 69% of Americans would not accept a job with a company who had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed.

In the digital age, dissatisfied consumers can use social media to rapidly spread negative opinions. There have been numerous instances where a company received bad publicity in the press because of an employee’s social media posts.

Over the summer, Bank of America came under fire because of an employee’s derogatory Facebook post. Christine McMullen Lindgren spewed racist language towards African Americans and called for people to “go back to Africa.” Her Facebook profile indicated that she worked at Bank of America, and it didn’t take long for her post to spread across the internet.

A spokesman for Bank of America stated that the bank received “thousands of comments calling out the hateful employee through social media and complaints over the phone.” The following screenshot represents just a handful of tweets that Twitter users posted after the employee’s Facebook post came to light.

A few days later, Bank of America released a statement saying that the employee had been terminated. Despite their eventual action, for many of their clients it was too late. Several Twitter users indicated that the employee’s Facebook post changed the way that they viewed Bank of America. Many clients made the decision to switch banks altogether.

Using social media background screening to protect brand reputation

As the previous example shows, all it takes is one social media post to damage a company’s brand reputation. It can be difficult for an organization to rebound after there is a negative perception already out there. One of the best ways to protect brand reputation is to conduct a social media search on prospective employees prior to hiring them. Social media background checks can reveal whether a candidate has a history of posting sexually explicit, racist, unlawful, or violent material online. This data will help you make a more informed hiring decision. That way you can ensure that everyone you hire shares your company values.

Looking for more information? Visit our products page to learn all about our social media hiring reports, or contact us for a sample.

Contributing author: Caitlin Rogers

Social media screening can reduce the financial implications of a bad hire

February 2, 2017 by Social Intel

Recruitment can be an expensive and lengthy process. Research shows that the average time-to-fill for jobs across all US industries has been rising steadily since 2009. It is important to find candidates who are a good fit for your company with the right qualifications, experience, and personality. Although it is a daunting task to find suitable employees, one bad seed can have a negative impact on your entire organization.

Today we’re starting a new series to take a closer look at some of the implications of a bad hire. Over the coming weeks, we’ll focus specifically on brand reputation, cost, and workplace safety. This week we’ll concentrate on the financial implications of a bad hire.

Bad hires are costly

The majority of businesses have made at least one bad hiring decision. In fact, 75% of employers who participated in a recent CareerBuilder study admitted to hiring the wrong person for a position. It can take up to six months to figure out that the person is a bad hire. Many companies will spend additional time working with the employee to improve their performance before they decide to replace them. Consequently, a bad hire is said to cost a company roughly 30% of the individual’s first year potential earnings.

Social media screening can weed out bad hires

Consider the following example: Company X recruited and hired John Doe for an annual salary of $30,000. After a few months with the company, the office manager began to recognize concerning trends in his behavior. He was placed on a performance improvement plan for an additional month. One day, John had a violent outburst in the break room. Finally, after investing countless hours recruiting, onboarding, and training John, they were forced to let him go. This cost the company an estimated $10,000 after taking into consideration the costs of having John be part of the company to begin with, combined with the costs of replacing him.

This scenario could have been avoided if Company X had conducted a social media search on John. Such a search would have revealed that John has a history of posting violent statements on his Facebook profile, such as the ones pictured below.

Our social media hiring reports are designed to capture your applicant or employee’s online activity. We look for unlawful activity, potentially violent behavior, sexually explicit material, racism and/or demonstrations of intolerance. Find out how our product can protect your company from workplace safety issues and save you money by contacting us today.

Check back next week for information about how social media screening can protect your company from workplace safety issues.

Contributing author: Caitlin Rogers

Have you considered using social media screening in the workplace?

January 19, 2017 by Social Intel

One of our partners, Sterling Talent Solutions, recently published a blog post about social media screening. Their post breaks down some of the potential risks of using social media during the hiring process. They also discuss ways of mitigating those risks. It is well worth the read, but here are a few highlights:

Social media is on the rise among many demographics

It does not appear that social networking sites will be going away anytime soon. The number of social media users worldwide is projected to grow to at least 2.5 billion by 2018. In past years, women were more likely to use social media sites, but one study found that men are closing the gap. Likewise, social media usage among people ages 65 and older has tripled since 2010.

As social media usage increases, more and more companies are turning to social media to find information about their job candidates. In 2015, 52% of US employers used social networking sites to research perspective employees. That number jumped up to 60% the following year.

Avoid the risks of in-house social media screening

Social media is a powerful tool that can be utilized to help hiring managers learn more about potential employees. At job interviews, and on their resumes, candidates will typically present themselves as they want to be seen. However, social media accounts can provide a better picture of the candidate’s true character.

As helpful as social media can be during the hiring process, it can also be risky for a corporation’s HR department to look directly at their job candidate’s accounts and profiles. Each state has a list of its own protected classes (such as political affiliation and source of income), in addition to the existing federally protected classes (including gender and national origin). These protected classes are designed to prevent discrimination. Because of that, running social media searches in-house can open up your company to discrimination claims and breach of privacy laws.

Protect your company

The best way to protect your company from these risks is by using a third party screening provider to run the searches for you. Our social media hiring reports are designed so that all federally and state protected class information is redacted. That way no one from your organization makes a hiring decision based on information that they shouldn’t have seen. You can find out more about our product here.

Contributing author: Caitlin Rogers