How can you avoid bias and discrimination when using social media screening for candidates?

We operate in Health and Social care so we use a psychometric assessment tool that provides a non biased, values based set of reports so that you are hiring based on a candidates core values, we use a tool called Care Character to achieve this. It also allows candidates to receive a report that helps them prepare in advance for the interview.

Avoiding bias and discrimination during social media screening requires a structured and impartial approach. I focus solely on job-relevant information, such as professional skills, work history, and public posts related to industry expertise. To prevent unconscious bias, I avoid evaluating personal characteristics like race, gender, or religion. I ensure that the screening process is consistent across all candidates, applying the same criteria. Additionally, I rely on a team or third-party service for screening to provide an objective review, ensuring compliance with legal guidelines and maintaining fairness throughout the hiring process.

Regularly review and update your screening criteria to ensure they remain relevant and inclusive. Define clear policies for social media screening, emphasizing that decisions will be based solely on job-related criteria. Look for skills, qualifications, and professional behavior rather than personal characteristics or protected attributes. Develop standardized criteria for evaluating social media profiles. This ensures consistency and fairness in the screening process. Consider anonymizing social media profiles during the initial screening phase. This can help remove information that could lead to bias and allow the focus to remain on professional qualifications.

In a bid trying to exercise high levels of accountability while conducting social media screening, the following checklist should be followed, This goes a long way in explaining the hiring decisions and also preventing lawsuits or complaints on discrimination. Explain to candidates what screening process you will be using and get their permission to view their social media accounts. This approach is maintaining fairness and you ensure that job candidates as well as your organization’s privacy is protected.

It is a good strategy to show potential candidates what your process looks like so they can know what to expect, long gone are the times when we used to hide our processes from candidates, we now need to provide them with insights as to how we work. At the end of the day if we are attracting people to our organisations why would we hide the way we work?

This is no different than posting a job advert to the whole world, it does not give you the right to overstep a boundary and you should always respects peoples privacy, in fact go as far as to share your privacy policy upfront to show you are a trusted employer. Just because it is social media changes nothing to how you deal with privacy, it's simple, it is not your information until given to you.

This is difficult as we all have a bias whether we want to agree or not, so the more you look at a persons social media feed the more your bias will kick in and this then effects your thought process. You should have an assessment tool that allows candidates to provide limited personal information but allows an assessment tool to provide you the hiring manager / recruiter with a non biased insight to make the first judgement. In Health and Social care I use Care Character.

This is best avoided, unless someone is going to be public-facing, or in a highly visible role. In those instances they should be aware the screening is going to take place (in the same way a background check requires consent), and it should be conducted by a specialist 3rd party provider