Checking a job applicant’s Facebook profile might be a big mistake, according to new research out of Clemson University.
In studies that will be published next year, researchers Philip Roth and Jason Thatcher found no relationship between how employers rated Facebook profiles and how those people actually performed on the job. What’s more, African-Americans and Hispanics were sometimes negatively affected by social media ratings.
Thatcher is director of Clemson’s Social Analytics Institute and Roth teaches courses in HR management. Roth said many people in hiring positions are surprised at the lack of correlation, assuming that Facebook captures personality and can therefore predict job performance.
“I would counsel organizations not to use Facebook or Twitter because there is no track record of either source predicting job performance.” LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network, also lacks evidence of predicting job performance.
Roth said it is difficult to find precise information on just how many employers are using social media screening in their hiring practices, but he estimates it could be between 25 and 40 percent.
One complicating factor is that employers cannot judge the veracity of information published on social media. If employers are choosing people with carefully crafted or faked profiles, those who are more honest could be getting short shrift. There might also be unrecognized legal implications to screening with social media. Roth said the practice amounts to a test by federal government standards, and tests are supposed to have a track record of predicting job performance, especially if they adversely impact groups such as blacks and Hispanics.
As for exactly how and why employers are using people’s social media, the evidence is only anecdotal so far. They could be using it to prescreen applicants for interviews, study authors say.
“Some of them will tell you that they’re looking for this factor called judgment, but they find it very hard to define what judgment is or tell you how it relates to job performance,” Roth said.
What does work? Roth said work samples that simulate the job, and cognitive ability tests that assess skills like verbal and mathematical ability are tried and true. So are structured interviews that start with a job description and ask all candidates the same types of questions.
Hiring is not always done by trained HR professionals, however, and the allure of information available on social media might be too strong for some people to ignore. “It’s a reflexive need to check the Internet. It’s almost like fool’s gold,” Roth said.
The use of social media in human resources management is largely uncharted territory in academia and the scant amount of research is slow to publish. Roth and Thatcher’s research is set to be published in the Journal of Management next year. Roth now is recruiting participants for a follow-up study; those interested can email him at rothp@clemson.edu.
