Why Recruiting Using Social Media is a Dangerous Game
I realize this might be something of a hot take at the moment, but in my opinion, social media shouldn't be our go-to source for job recruitment.
Don't believe me? Hear me out.
Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have addicted us to their algorithms. Data mining is now ubiquitous in our daily lives, with absurd quantities of personal information available to anyone anywhere with a single click of the mouse.
It seems to me that these types of social media sites should be off-limits to recruiters. I believe that people should be able to post what they want without fear that it could cost them a job.
We shouldn't see social media recruiting as the perfect solution to every hiring situation.
While it is true that people tend to post more extreme things than they would say in person, embracing recruiting through social media poses another significant problem: it's impossible to remain unbiased toward a candidate after getting an unfiltered, behind-the-curtains look at their personal life.
These biased impressions could be positive -- for instance, noticing the candidate has the same breed of dog as you do, or finding that they also appreciate your favorite television show. This unconscious biasing is known as the "halo effect", and may lead to the HR professional hiring someone who is not actually a good fit for the position.
Those impressions could just as easily be negative. There may be grammar and spelling mistakes in their posts, which might lead you to unconsciously question their competence. Maybe they are emphatically agreeing with something you vehemently disagree with. Regardless, the result is the same: the "horns effect", which will more than likely cost that candidate the job.
I haven't even brought up the potential DEI issues -- what if the candidate identifies as a protected class and you choose not to hire them? Could that have inadvertently tipped the scales for your decision? This is a legal timebomb waiting for just the right misstep, and -- BOOM.
It's clear that the more generalized social media sites have lost their usefulness amid a deluge of excessively personal and polarizing information. Does this mean that all social media is bad?
Social media sites designed for professionals, like LinkedIn, give you a closer representation of each user's authentic "work-self".
That said, I want to stress that my initial point was not so much that social media is not useful for recruitment, but rather that we shouldn't see such recruiting techniques as the perfect solution to every hiring situation.
With recruiting, as in life, there are exceptions to every rule. Social media sites designed specifically for professionals are easily utilized in positive recruitment strategies. For instance, on LinkedIn, you're getting a closer representation of each user's authentic "work-self", rather than the dirty-laundry exposure that goes on at Facebook or Twitter.
LinkedIn offers a great deal of relevant background information for potential candidates, including:
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Compare this to Facebook, which offers the following:
I'm being facetious, but I'm sure you see my point. On the one hand, we have a social media site where the user's information is relevant, useful and relatively unbiased. On the other, there's mountains of exceptionally personal and uncomfortable content you're going to have to sift through if you're going to find relevant work material.
So far, we've talked about the information and impressions an organization can get from candidates. This is a two-way street, though -- remember that for social media to be utilized for recruitment, that means the company itself must also have a social media presence.
This can be a difficult tightrope to walk. Without skilled professionals operating these accounts, social media can become more detrimental than helpful. Consider Media Richness Theory, which mentions that the source of company information (in this example, the social media account) must be accessible and relevant with regards to the organization (Daft & Lengel, 1986).
When the source doesn't have enough professionally communicated content that's intentionally curated to increase user certainty toward the organization, this can result in a negative perspective on the organization by the candidate (Cable & Yu, 2006).
For these reasons, I'd hesitate to recommend social media recruitment for small businesses without dedicated and interwoven marketing and IT departments. It's too easy to shoot yourself in the foot.
If, however, you're working for an organization with sufficient infrastructure to support talented individuals and content developers, then social media can provide a direct line to a wealth of candidates who will connect and remain in contact with you even if they don't need work at the moment. Through word-of-mouth (keyboard?) you can create impressive webs of talent that you can tap into at any time.
For those companies that can afford to present themselves on social media with rich content that stimulates positive impressions to applicants, recruiting online at the appropriate social media site can provide essential, renewable value.
References:
Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32, 554–571.
Cable, D. M., & Yu, K. Y. T. (2006). Managing job seekers’ organizational image beliefs: The role of media richness and media credibility. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 828–840.