There has recently been a ton of news on the state of our ‘online reputations.’ As social media becomes more prevalent in modern-day society, people are posting more and more of their information online. This information includes a dazzling amount of content, including birthdays, events, pictures, movies, wall posts and more. In essence, a person’s online profile prevents any information in their past from getting erased – every action that a person takes online will be recorded for public viewing in the future.
There’s an up side and down side to this loss of privacy. The down side is people are having a difficult time controlling their privacy – what information they want to share with the public and what they want to be just seen by their friends or family. Although social networks like Facebook provide privacy controls, many people aren’t completely sure how to properly work them. The result of this phenomenon is people are getting exposed when they don’t want to.
There have already been several high-profile cases where individuals were fired due to their online persona. Whether it be a drunken party pictures, use of illegal drugs, or any other assortment of activities that came to light, companies have started to latch onto the practice of checking on people’s personal profiles.
For companies that are looking to recruit the best possible candidates, this wealth of online information provides the opportunity to peek into the life of a candidate. This isn’t all about finding what’s wrong with a potential job candidate – it has just as much to do with finding the good qualities. Perhaps a company’s team is made up of dog lovers, and a potential candidate also happens to have just adopted a puppy. This would be something that might be revealed on a person’s online profile and could greatly increase their chance of a potential team synergy.
A proper interview often can reveal quite a bit about a job candidate, however, due to a person’s personality less information then necessary might be communicated. This is especially true in the tech world. Although it is a bit of a stereotype, many of the most talented engineers often are quite soft-spoken. During an interview they may not reveal the social side of themselves – the side that is necessary to interact with the rest of the team. This individual’s online persona, however, may reveal that they are indeed outgoing and would be easy to work with on an everyday basis.
If a company is considering hiring a candidate, but aren’t quite sure about them – it may be beneficial to find out the relevant background information. How can a company get all this necessary information? This is where a tech recruiter can be of use.
An experienced tech recruiter should be able to find out all the necessary information on a candidate through a variety of means. This includes technical qualifications as well as ‘social queues’ that indicate the candidate would be a great hire. Sometimes, this can also include finding ‘bad’ information that would discount a candidate from being hired. If a company truly wants to make a great hire, everything needs to be on the table.