Focus: Human Resources
FOCUS
HUMAN RESOURCES
BY LAURIE ARENDT
Never forget a Face(book)
This summer, my 11-year-old
daughter made her first official foray into entrepreneurism: She became a babysitter. When I offered up her services to my personal Facebook friends, a number of her relatives vouched for her character, including my 20-something niece, which made me cringe. Her intentions were certainly good, but coupled with her profile photo, they not only seemed conflicted but possibly negative. My niece’s photo selection? A photo of her holding a one-hundred dollar bill and “saluting” the camera with a very specific finger. Not exactly the professional face I was hoping a reference would put forward. A recently commissioned Microsoft report focused on online reputations and how they are affecting hiring decisions. Of the more than 1,200 recruiters surveyed for the report, 70 percent say that they have rejected candidates based on information they found online. Nearly 75 percent of American companies surveyed also have made online screening a formal requirement of the hiring process. And why not? It’s relatively easy, cheap and quick to find out something about everyone on the Web. With the advent of social networking sites, it’s also become a method of communication and expression. The question then becomes whether or not those online personas matter in the hiring process. Here, there’s a clear and not unexpected split: Eighty five percent of U.S. recruiters and H.R. professionals says that a positive online reputation influences their hiring decisions and nearly half say that it has a strong effect. The report also included a survey of consumers, many of whom have mixed feelings about the appropriateness of recruiters and HR professionals relying on online content to make hiring decisions. As a group, most found it reasonable that professional sites would be part of the due diligence used in the hiring process. Consumers were far more concerned about the scrutiny of personal content, including photos, videos, blogs, personal social network pages and similar online spaces. Perhaps the difference is generational. Using an unscientific survey of my own cohort of Facebook acquaintances resulted in a consistent theme: The older my Facebook friends are, the more likely they are to have stricter security settings on their personal information. With some exceptions, they also seem to me much more judicious in the type of information and photo subject matter that finds its way online. That is also in keeping with the results of the Microsoft study. Those consumers who were concerned about their online reputation did rely on a variety of methods to monitor and manage their online information, including multiple personas, regular searches for information about themselves, the adjustment of privacy settings and overall discretion from posting content that they believed could damage their reputation. About one-third of the consumers surveyed felt that their online reputation does not have any effect on their personal or professional life and therefore took no steps to conceal it. But perhaps they should. The study clearly found that one of the reasons corporations have taken a hard look at online reputations is because an employee’s private actions and decision making ability (or lack thereof ) have the potential to damage their firm. Not only can an employee create negative headlines about their organization, but the speed in which tweets, posts, photos and video can travel online is problematic. Interestingly enough, the top three types of online information that do cause American employers to reject candidates are practical: Concerns about the candidate’s lifestyle (58 percent); inappropriate comments and texts written by the candidate (56 percent); and unsuitable photos, videos and information (55 percent). In which case, it might be a good idea for everyone to think twice before they hit that upload, send or tweet button.CRW
Laurie Arendt is editor of CRW.
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O CTOBER 2010 | CORPORATE REPORT WISCONSIN
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