What Is Next On The Hiring Front You Should Worry About

Forget ATS. Look at your digital footprint.

So you finally figured out the whole ATS game when it comes to being hired. The only problem is, you’re still not getting as many calls as back in the day. What could be going on? Have you looked at your digital footprint lately?

Yep, the folks in hiring land now have a new tool to use in the war on making sure their new hire does not have anything up with them. Enter Amazing Hiring. From their website, AmazingHiring Chrome Extension is “a professional sourcing tool that finds tech specialists’ social media profiles, contacts and information about the professional background . It finds candidates’ accounts across 50+ professional and social networks saving your time on screening and contacting candidates. AmazingHiring?is an AI-based people aggregator to source passive IT candidates across the web.?It finds profiles from all major networks like GitHub, StackOverflow, Facebook,?Kaggle, Xing, etc. and provides recruiters with candidates’ professional background, contacts, social footprint.??This makes it easier for hiring managers to make sure that candidates fit the "company’s values.”

Interestingly enough, this item presented itself to me over LinkedIn, from an actual Talent and Career Development professional, who found it fascinating, but concerning at the same time. I share her concerns.

First, does this mean some qualified candidates could be overlooked because they don’t use social media or keep a low digital profile? And does this put too much emphasis on personal information rather than professional qualifications? The answer to both is YES. There are plenty of us who do not use social media for various reasons. The tool doesn’t account for those with a history of being stalked or those who have social anxiety or disabilities, all perfectly valid reasons for not using social media. Depending on the hiring person, this may well be a main strike against you before they even look at a resume. Relying solely on a candidate’s digital footprint can indeed overlook valuable individuals who might not have an extensive online presence.

Also, this can easily be used to discriminate right off the bat. Analyzing one’s digital footprint means you can set up searching for only those with certain education from certain universities, for example. Not from Stanford or MIT? Mention that you are taking care of an ailing parent? Does your circle of friends talk about retirement? All those jokes about drinking on your Facebook page? Political speech? You see where we are headed with this? Sorry, but the whole thing reeks of ways to discriminate against totally qualified people. And you can’t tell me that once companies find out how to do it, they won’t. Just a quick letter to the passed over candidate that “We’ve decided to go with another candidate” and no one is the wiser.

Now in defense of the platform, this helps vetting candidates. Companies have been burned as of late, finding out their employees are weekend Nazis, insurrectionists and the like. After all, they have an image to maintain and knowing that they may be hiring someone who is doing things outside of work that a jury may find the company liable for has to be taken into account. That said, the lazy man’s way is to rely on the machine and not bother to delve into information further and most folks will take the lazy way out, given the number of resumes they receive for a specific position.

I’m not one to run around like my hair is on fire, but this is concerning. Companies may want to dress it up by saying they want to detect candidates’ “passion” and “cultural fit” based on their digital footprint. However, it’s essential to balance digital insights with traditional qualifications and face to face vetting. Prioritizing one over the other could miss out on valuable talent. However, this has definite Brazil vibes with it.