The other day, my colleague told me a crazy story about a candidate who was instructed to log into her Facebook account during an interview so the hiring manager could see it. Surprisingly, the candidate – in relaying her story to my colleague – seemed more concerned with whether or not she would be hired than she was with what many would consider an abuse of power and invasion of privacy.
The whole thing left me wondering: When it comes to using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for recruiting – what we call social recruiting – how far is too far?
With so many nuances, and so many (as yet) unwritten rules, how can recruiters best utilize social media to source quality candidates and assess whether they would be a good fit? Thankfully, there are some best practices emerging to help recruiters know when they’ve pushed the proverbial envelope too far – as happened with my colleague’s friend.
Beyond learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t, hiring professionals are discovering a new line of recruiting applications and tools designed to help them rise above the same old hashtag to better identify, connect with and place viable candidates.
