Social Media Recruiting

The Risks and Costs of Using Social Media as a Recruitment Tool.

While social media offers many advantages to employers in terms of recruitment, like any other investment, using social media to recruit also has certain costs and risks attached to it. For example, legal risks and ethical questions tend to relate to the practice of screening during the recruitment process.

Most employers have always been able to request background checks on candidates. Still, they have been limited in doing so because of the legal requirements. Social media has shifted this trend, and most employers are continuously conducting informal background checks without the applicant’s knowledge. Even though the practice has been adopted as acceptable, it still begs whether the practice is ethical.

Social media in recruitment may disadvantage most candidates who don’t have access to such privilege. Even worse, it can lead to discrimination based on the candidate’s characteristics and social lifestyle.

This article explores these shortcomings in detail.

So,

What are the risks and costs of using social media as a recruitment tool?

1.     Financial costs.

Social media sites tend to cause communication traffic which includes queries from job candidates. Furthermore, there is a large capacity for low-quality applications that are received through the same channel. These unprecedented events need some dedicated time and resources to ensure that the latest updates are posted, and the questions are answered.

Even though most organisations don’t feel this is a big issue, the cost involved is mainly around ensuring that enough time and resources are devoted to giving training to managers responsible for operating the online content. The use of the right technology to facilitate an organisation’s online presence also requires an investment in equipment and qualified staff to manage the technology.

2.     Accuracy of Information.

Recruiting through social media is generally not a formalised technique of the recruitment process. This means that the information gained from the candidate might be inaccurate and misleading, leading to hiring the wrong talent. With the desperation to have a standout online presence, the information candidates choose to share on social media can be distorted. This can be strongly open for interpretation on the targeted audience, or rather the recruiter.

For example, an individual may post a photo of themselves drinking with the impression to share memories with friends and family. However, this may portray a different image to potential recruiters. For some reason, employers are more inclined to believe the information published on social media as accurate than the information found on most cover letters.

These concerns raise the broader question of whether job-related characteristics can be analysed accurately from the information gathered from social media platforms. Or, instead, should computers be trusted with the human ability to vet a person’s skill and abilities?

3.     Making Errors.

Interactions between organisations and their followers happen quickly on almost all social media platforms. The risk of making errors when using social media for recruiting purposes falls on the higher side of the scale. You make one mistake, such as a typo, and you’ve misrepresented the whole organisation. Imagine posting a wrong job vacancy! Even though making mistakes is part of human nature, most internet users lack the patience to empathise with that aspect.

It would be best to prepare for any mistakes and have potential solutions right at your disposal as an organisation. Nothing would be more embarrassing than making a mistake and lacking a real-time solution.

4.     Diversity of the Applicants.

This risk begs an important question. What is the relative diversity of the applicants available? Realistically, there maybe intergenerational, gender, and racial variations in the acceptance and usage of job-seeking platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. In fact, there is a good number of talented candidates with the right skills and abilities who don’t have access to such media, let alone the internet.

Job seekers without access to the internet have a competitive disadvantage compared to their peers who have gain access to the internet. Moreover, there might be demographic differences regarding who has an online portfolio and who doesn’t. Or the age difference in accessing the same technology.

Participation and a response to a job offer online seem appealing to a different population than that recruited through traditional ways. The advantaged pool of applicants is probably highly educated and more common job-changers in the employment sector. The equity of access to employment and the general diversity of the workplace could, in turn, be affected. This attaches to the threat that if the online search is not balanced with other old-fashioned recruitment methods, then the right talent will be left out.

An organisation should encourage equality in the workplace by ensuring that the recruitment process is fair and does not use social media as a sole recruitment means. Instead, combine it with other avenues like the organisation’s website, newspapers, and journals.

5.     Negative Online Conduct and Brand Squatting.

Even though social media is an avenue to generate positive and motivational content that helps organisations acquire the proper branding, it is also a platform for criticism, negative remarks, and demoralising comments. In fact, the negative comments spread quickly and easily.

Most organisations experience diverse challenges, such as how to deal with false allegations made on frequently visited websites. Even if your organisation has had positive experiences, it would be best to stress the significance of closely monitoring what is being said on social media platforms.

What is brand squatting? Brand squatting is an alarmingly common form of identity theft where a third party creates a social media username or profile that is identical or confusingly like your brand.

This phenomenon can lead to misrepresentation of an organisation causing more risks than good to an organisation’s use of social media as a recruitment tool.

6.     Legal Risks.

Utilising social media platforms to find the right talent is a relatively new practice. Its implications are largely unproven legally. Nevertheless, given the volume of material employers can access online, there are possible grounds on which candidates could challenge the practice.

The information sourced through social media welcomes a series of unending legal questions and challenges. Social platforms can easily allow for individual biases and discrimination to affect recruiting decisions. For instance, employers are not currently allowed to disclose the information sourced from social media platforms while making screening assessments. This may enable managers to victimise and make a poor judgement against potential candidates.

Conclusion.

While using social media as a recruitment tool has become one of the most excellent tools for finding the right talent, it does not come without cost and risk. There is no doubt that employers using social media for hiring can source valuable and sensitive information about potential candidates from their social media profiles. Still, they can rely on misleading information to eliminate the right talent because of the managers’ own bias.

While looking at information about the candidate, background checks can also reveal details about the applicant’s private life, which can hinder the ability of an organisation to make a quick decision.

Organisations using social media as a recruitment tool should consider the cost invested in finding the right talent and use social media and other traditional recruitment techniques to promote equality within the workforce. Furthermore, organisations should make it their best practice to keep track of their online presence to grasp negative comments impacting the entire organisation.

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