You’ve heard the warnings. People getting fired for bashing their employer on Facebook. Candidates are disqualified from the selection process for inappropriate photos, often without even realizing it. Social media has become a liability for job seekers.
The gut instinct for staffing industry recruiters is to tell their candidates to hide their profiles. College graduates are changing their profile names, often with purposeful misspellings so recruiters can’t find them. But hiding their online identity could hurt too.
According to Staffing Industry, IT and financial sectors are the most likely to use social networks to screen candidates. Retail candidates were among the lowest share. The surprising fact? Having no info online could actually hurt a candidates’ job prospects.
According to CareerBuilder’s annual social media recruitment survey, over one third of employers said they are less likely to interview job candidates if they cannot find any information about the person online.
Social media is usually for our personal lives. Connecting with college friends. Sharing pictures from your trip. Keeping up with family members across the states. Funny cat memes. But it can be a great tool too.
Here are some tips to make sure your candidates’ profiles are up for the job search:
Go back in time. Take a look back to the earliest social media days. Any pictures from college? Throwback Thursdays they’d rather forget about? Make sure your candidates update their privacy settings or delete all inappropriate photos.
Add your work. Make sure candidates add all their work history to their social media profiles, not just LinkedIn.
Boost your LinkedIn profile. Upload a professional photo, make sure it has samples of their work, encourage candidates to participate in LinkedIn groups and discussions. It’s one of your top recruitment tools, it should be a high priority for your client too.
When utilized correctly, social media is a boon to the staffing industry. Staffing is a dynamic and complex industry with many liability risk exposures. At World Wide Specialty Programs, we provide insurance solutions to help the staffing industry manage their risk exposures and protect their assets. To learn more about our operation, give us a call today at 877-256-0468.