EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

The folks at Talent Management Magazine just published a position paper we wrote on the use of social networking sites to conduct employment background checks, entitled “Life is Not an Open (Face)book“.  I’ve posted an excerpt below.

Social networks and other online media offer a seemingly easy way to weed out poor candidates. But when brand image, legal liability and top talent are at stake, there is no substitute for solid employee screening practices.

It’s a hard reality every hiring manager these days knows well: More people are vying for fewer jobs. Applicants pad their resumes even during economic booms, so the temptation to embellish one’s experience, abilities and credentials — and downplay drug charges or other criminal history — is even greater now.

Background screening has never been more critical, but the methods used are particularly important in this digital age. Some screening methods could expose an organization to legal liability, lost business or brand damage.

Social Media: Screening Friend or Foe?

Back in the day, hiring managers checked applicant references, maybe even took the extra step to verify college degrees, and the rest was up to a background screening partner. But the advent of social media sites has opened the door to a whole new kind of applicant screening.

CareerBuilder publishes an annual study on social network use among recruiters. In 2008, 22 percent of hiring managers were looking on social media sites — including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs — as part of their research and screening efforts. In 2009, that number jumped to 45 percent. An additional 11 percent intended to start using social media sites for screening.

There are three challenges that arise from this trend.

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Bankrate.com has published a great article entitled “3 Dangers of Social Networking” where they highlight three key areas that the information you post on sites such as Facebook and Twitter can cause problems.

• Employment
• Debt Collection
• Scams

Since we most frequently focus on employment, I’ve included that section below.  But, check out the article when you get a chance.  There’s a lot of good advice in here.

Employment

Andy Beal, CEO of the social media monitoring platform Trackur.com, says jobseekers should assume potential employers will do a Google search of candidates’ names. Social media profiles typically appear near the top of the search page.

If you have questionable pictures or posts on a public profile, take them down or make the profile private to avoid trouble.

Also, steer clear of negative talk about a prospective employer on any social media platform, Beal says. Many companies monitor mentions of their brand throughout the Web, he says.

He cites the case of a Twitter user who posted about a new job offer from Cisco, but expressed doubt about “the daily commute” and “hating the work.” A Cisco employee noticed the tweet and demanded to know the name of the user’s hiring manager.

Even employees who think their jobs are safe can sabotage themselves by being too honest online about their personal lives, or by posting feelings regarding a boss, client, co-worker or company for whom they work.

“We’ve seen a lot of cases of people publishing status updates that have gotten them in trouble,” says Justin Smith, founder and editor in chief of Inside Facebook. “People have said things that have caused problems with their boss because of what they said about their work or because they’ve shared some other kind of private information about work online.”

Caroline McCarthy, a staff writer at CNET News, says the best defense against such mistakes is to use plain old common sense. Remember, anything that appears on the Web is just a screenshot away from spreading quickly, despite the best efforts of social media users to keep it private.

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In the past week Facebook finally posted its updated privacy controls and policy.  Many media outlets are reporting that these new controls do anything but protect ones privacy.  In our effort to further educate employers about using social networking sites for background screening our case is sustained further to job seekers who are worried about what someone can find.  As a screening company we are all for open information to  employers, however, in many cases the information is misleading and even fraudulent.

Privacy advocates slam Facebook change

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Privacy advocates slammed revamped Facebook privacy controls on Thursday, saying the change masks a move to get members to expose more information online.

“These new privacy changes aren’t so great for privacy,” said Nicole Ozer, northern California technology and civil liberties policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rights group.

“It’s great that 350 million people are being asked to think about privacy, but if what Facebook says is true about giving people more control over their information, they have a lot more work to do.”

Online rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) labeled aspects of Facebook’s privacy change “downright ugly.”

The world’s leading online social network fired back, saying its critics are wrong and that time will prove that Facebook is taking “a giant step forward.”

The controversy came a day after Facebook began requiring users to refine settings with a new software tool that lets them specify who gets to be privy to each piece of content uploaded to the website.

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Facebook is working really hard to combat online sexual predators and other deviant behavior on its popular internet portal.  Facebook is the leading online social networking tool with over 300 million subscribers.  This online safety board is a great step towards thwarting this type of activity.  I think a great next step is for them to educate employers on the perils of using its site for background checks.  As our readers know well this is a topic we have written passionately about for a few years now.  We look forward to one day collaborating with the folks over at Facebook on how to better protect employers and applicants alike!

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Social networking site Facebook said it has formed an advisory board comprising five Internet safety organizations to consult on issues related to online safety.

Facebook plans to regularly meet board members to review existing safety resources it provides its users, develop new materials and seek advice on general safety best practices.

The first task of the board will be to oversee an overhaul of safety content in Facebook’s help center.

The organizations on the board are Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute.

Facebook and rival MySpace, owned by News Corp, have deals with state attorneys general to increase efforts to protect their youngest members from abuse.

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We will kick off this weekends wrap up with a timely story from the National Football League (NFL).  Like my Cleveland Browns, the Oakland Raiders just can’t catch a break.  Fortunately for them they have a marker in the W column.  Unfortunately for them they have a bit of controversy off the field.  They are bracing for the possibility that coach Tom Cable could be arrested soon for an alleged assault on an assistant coach.  If charged, Cable could be suspended by the league.  If convicted Cable could run into serious problems if his next team decides to screen his criminal background.  More on that story here!

Making history today is Justice Sonia Sotomayor the first Hispanic justice of the United States Supreme Court.  Replacing retired Justice David Souter she will begin the new term with some interesting cases.  Background checks and gun laws will definitely be on their docket this year.  Most notably will be McDonald v. Chicago.  In 2008, the justices ruled in a case from the District of Columbia that the Second Amendment bestows an individual right to keep and bear arms. Because the case originated in a federal enclave, the justices passed on the question of whether the Second Amendment also applies to states, thus calling into question gun regulations in those jurisdictions. The justices have now taken up this question and are expected to decide whether citizens in Chicago — which has one of the most restrictive gun regulation regimes in the country — also enjoy the same Second Amendment rights as do their brethren in the District. This case was recently granted and is expected to be heard some time in early 2010.

In workplace violence news Forbes Magazine ran a story, Experts: US worker-on-worker violence under-reported.  Stemming from the murder at Yale Universtiy of Annie Le, they write about some interesting statistics.  Workplace homicide has dropped dramatically, to 444 such cases last year from twice as many in 1995, according to government statistics. And most of those deaths occur in robberies of taxi drivers and clerks. The worker-on-worker homicide rate hovers around a hundred a year nationwide, leaving little data to help predict who is likely to kill a co-worker, said Tom Tripp, co-author of “Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge.” More on this story Click Here

In a follow up to a story we wrote about extensively a few months back….Investigator: Bozeman’s Internet background checks weren’t voluntary.  If you remember this one, the City of Bozeman MT was asking job applicants to supply investigators with their passwords so they could access their Facebook and Myspace accounts as part of the pre-employment screening process.  The city suspended the policy in June of 2009 after they came under fire for the practice.  However, it appears as part of their investigation into the procedure they have found hiring managers got carried away with the practice! More on this story Click Here

This one should scare you if you have elderly relatives in Florida.  Florida lawmakers vow changes after learning of laxness, loopholes in checking child and elder care workers – Florida legislators pledged to overhaul state law to require that caregivers for children and the elderly undergo background checks before they begin work and to close loopholes that have let thousands of felons get jobs in day care and nursing homes.

The proposed reforms come after a Sun Sentinel investigative series last week identified disturbing flaws in the background screening system that allow people to work with Florida’s most vulnerable residents before the caregivers have been vetted. More on this story Click Here

And finally a Kidnapping plot proves the importance of background checks.  The man accused of plotting to kidnap two young girls from a bus stop and hold them for ransom made his first appearance in court on Friday.

Police say Ruben Garcia-Rosario parked his car near the girls’ bus stop to take pictures of them. Rosario is an illegal immigrant who had done some painting at the family’s house, according to investigators.

Would you let someone in your house without properly screening them?

More on this story Click Here

Well that’s it!  Have a great week and check back regularly for stories and comments in the background screening world!

If you have stories you would like us to blog about or post please feel free to email us at blog@employeescreen.com

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During Tuesday’s much publicized and controversial speech President Barack Obama touched on a subject we are very passionate about.  Echoing the plethora of articles we have written about over the last several years Obama warned of the perils of sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

“Well, let me give you some very practical tips. First of all, I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age, whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life,” Obama said.

“And when you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff. And I’ve been hearing a lot about young people who — you know, they’re posting stuff on Facebook, and then suddenly they go apply for a job and somebody has done a search.”

Where EmployeeScreenIQ has warned employers from using such information, he tells kids to be careful about what the put out there in the first place.  A smart strategy knowing that not all employers take our advice!  Aside from the many EEOC issues an employer could encounter there are several other Federal mandates one could violate. Most notibly is the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  (FCRA). To see one of our many presentations on the subject, feel free to visit here!

Obama Warns Teens of Perils of Facebook

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

President Barack Obama warned American teenagers on Tuesday of the dangers of putting too much personal information on Internet social networking sites, saying it could come back to haunt them in later life.

The presidential words of advice follow recent studies that suggest U.S. employers are increasingly turning to sites such as Facebook and News Corp’s MySpace to conduct background checks on job applicants.

Taking part in a question-and-answer session with a group of 14- and 15-year-old school students, Obama was asked by one pupil for some advice on becoming U.S. president.

“Well, let me give you some very practical tips. First of all, I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age, whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life,” Obama said.

“And when you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff. And I’ve been hearing a lot about young people who — you know, they’re posting stuff on Facebook, and then suddenly they go apply for a job and somebody has done a search.”

Obama referred several times to “mistakes” he had made when he was at school but offered no specifics. He has previously admitted to drug use when he was younger.

A survey in June by careerbuilder.com found that 45 percent of employers used social network sites to research job candidates and that Facebook, which says it has 250 million users worldwide, was their site of choice.

Some 35 percent of the employers surveyed said they had found content on the sites that had influenced them to reject a candidate. Examples included inappropriate photographs, information about the applicants’ drinking or drug use, or bad mouthing of previous employers, co-workers or clients.

The Obama White House frequently uses Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to bypass the media and communicate directly to Americans.

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 The following story isn’t anything new to our readers.  We’ve stated time and time again that employers should not use social networking sites as a way to investigate job candidates because the information you find may not be truthful in nature.  How do you know that the Facebook profile filled with bad language and borderline inappropriate photos you are looking at is your candidate’s creation and not the invention of a former friend, spouse or co-worker with an ax to grind?  Denying someone a job based on information found on a social networking site could be asking for trouble. 

But what about offering someone a position with your company based on the favorable information found in their profile?  This section of the article peaked my interest:

“On the other hand, some candidates are doing a good job of presenting their professional side when posting online. Half of those who screened candidates via their social networking profiles said that they got a good feel for the person’s personality and fit within the organization. Other employers said that they found the profiles supported the candidates’ professional qualifications or that they discovered how creative the candidate was. Solid communication skills, evidence of well-roundedness, and other people’s good references (we assume this one came from LinkedIn) helped boost people’s credentials, too.”

With all of the press surrounding employers using sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter to screen job applicants, it’s only a matter of time before applicants catch on and create fake profiles to make themselves look more qualified and professional than they really are (and maintain their real profiles under a pseudonym known only to the people they want to know).  And those references you see on LinkedIn – I could have a handful of glowing references on my profile by the end of the day just by sending a mass text to my old high school and college buddies.

Employers - Don’t believe the hype about how great social networking sites are to screen candidates.  Can you imagine having to explain to your boss: “Well, their facebook profile looked okay…” 

Click to read “Uncouth Facebook postings closing doors for job candidates”

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We can always count on Molly DiBianca of Delaware Employment Law Blog fame to offer an insightful opinion when it comes to the legality of social networking and employment practices.  Earlier this month we posted a entry by Ohio Law blogger Jon Hyman alerting employers of an opinion out there suggesting that recommending an employee on Linked could be problematic.

Molly begs to differ.  See below.

Warnings Against LinkedIn Recommendations: Justified or Propaganda?

LinkedIn, a popular social networking site, enables users to “recommend” other users with whom they’ve worked or done business. Not a bad idea, really. In theory, a recommendation could improve the legitimacy or credibility of a user, even making the user more desirable to potential clients or employers—the basic premise of the professional-networking site.  So why, then, have commentators suddenly taken up the issue in protest? Even the ABA Journal warns against recommendations, suggesting that employers are best advised to avoid them altogether.

But what about the linguist supervisor who loves to play wordsmith any chance he gets and who pens a lovely recommendation filled with gloriously specific adjectives and adverbs?  Then it may be a little trickier, right? Well, that depends. Does the junior Shakespeare write the same wordy recommendations for everyone or did he reserve his poetry for this one individual?

Even if the employee who later sues is the only lucky recipient of this supervisor’s digital words of praise, the realities of modern-day life—including our online lives—are not simply ignored by the courts.  Just because the law has not caught up with the constantly changing dynamics of social media doesn’t mean that it has turned a blind eye to it, either.  The courts and juries recognize that the fact that you “friend” someone on Facebook or “recommend” someone on LinkedIn is a far cry to an actual off-line friendship or analogue reference letter.

I am of the opinion that this new story is nothing more than propaganda.  I don’t think there’s much to the theory at all. But, to be fair, let’s look at it more closely.

What’s the potential harm, according to those who caution against permitting managers to recommend an employee?

Well, they say that a positive recommendation could be detrimental to the employer in a later lawsuit brought by the recipient of the recommendation.  If the employer claimed to terminate an employee due to performance, a positive recommendation would seem to contradict that claim.  The contradiction could act as pretext evidence, tending to show that the employer’s proffered reason (poor performance), was a mere pretext for a discriminatory reason for the termination.

Sounds legitimate to me.  Indeed, if a supervisor tells an employee how wonderful he or she is all the while thinking terrible things about the quality of the employee’s work product or habits, then there is likely going to be a contradiction between the reason the supervisor tells the employee he or she is being fired and the real reason.  Or not.  Maybe the supervisor, who is too chicken to be upfront and honest with the employee requesting a recommendation to just come out and say, “You know, Bob, I’m going to have to pass.  I don’t think I could write a recommendation for you because you haven’t been a very good performer while you’ve worked for me.”

Instead, the supervisor chickens out and says, “Uh, sure, Bob.  I’d be glad to write a recommendation for you.  Right after I get back from lunch.”  He then proceeds to write a “recommendation” that is pretty bland, entirely generic, and, to most people, having nothing to do with the specific individual.  Good for the wimpy supervisor!  If it’s a “positive” recommendation that is purely vanilla standard issue, then no harm done.

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Two great blog postings from two great online legal sources.  The first by Jon Hyman of Korman, Jackson and Krantz talks about a restaurants liability of firing employees after reading their Myspace posts.  This does not fit with our argument about not using it for background screening prior to hiring but it is closely related.  If you read our story about Bozeman Montana you will see how this jury finding is important and timely.  The practice of requiring employees to divulge their passwords violated the Stored Communications Act.

The second story comes from the Legal Blog Watch.  In it, 69 year old human rights activist Khedija Arfaoui is facing an eight month jail sentence in Tunisia for posting a message on Facebook about rumors of children being kidnapped in the country for their organs.  Enjoy!

Jon Hyman Blog

Carolyn Elefant Blog

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Just found this great interview with attorney Jacqueline Klosek from Goodwin Procter about the dangers of using social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace for employment screening purposes.  Among the topics discussed is troubling screening policy adopted and later rescinded by the city of Bozeman, MT.

Create Job Applicant Screening Policies Upfront- by Lora Bentley, IT Business Edge

Bentley: I’ve read about the public outcry that resulted from the City of Bozeman, Mont.’s decision to ask job applicants for their social networking site user names and passwords. Obviously, there are enough problems associated with that practice that the city discontinued it. Can you explain?

Klosek: It’s just, in my mind, fraught with legal dangers. For example, what you post on your own Web site, the writings and photos and such, you’re really using someone else’s service. And for the most part, if you provide your password to the sites in which you participate, you could be violating their terms of use, which could leave you as the user subject to potential claims, including termination of your account or worse.

Then, as an employer, say you ask someone for their user name and password and then give it to another employee to do the screening, you don’t know exactly what they’re going to do with that information. With the user name and password, they’re basically impersonating the person whose account it is. They can send e-mails that purport to be on that person’s behalf, they can review e-mails that were sent from other people… It could be mundane personal communications, but there could also be trade secrets being exchanged, or a host of other things behind these protected e-mails. It’s just a minefield of dangers, in my view.

Bentley: What if you are using the Internet to screen prospective employees without their user names and passwords? Aren’t there still risks in doing that?

Klosek: A great majority of potential employers do screen applicants using at least publicly available portions of the Internet. In some respects, there can be meaningful information on some of those sites, but you’re right to suggest there are risks in doing so. The biggest risk is that you may find too much information — information that, as a prospective employer, it may be dangerous for you to have.

For example, laws that we have in the States would prohibit inquiring or basing employment decisions on factors such as age, family status (whether or not you were looking to have children) …. Most employers are well-versed in avoiding those topics in the employment process, but they may access that information online.

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