How can my company use social media to vet employees?
Using social media to vet employees can be a wonderful addition to your background investigation process. Ensuring that they are conducted within the guidelines of the FCRA is critical, as well as ensuring that applicant rights are not being violated in any way. Certain parts of the FCRA that relate to social media include taking all reasonable action to ensure that information provided relates to the correct applicant. All too often, searches for an individual return results for another person by the same name or with a similar appearance. If “John Smith” has applied for a job, the background investigation company must do its due diligence to be sure that the person whose Facebook page they check is the correct “John Smith.” It is also imperative that the applicant is given an opportunity to refute any information as the authenticity of the social media page cannot be verified. In addition, employers are not able to make hiring decisions based upon a person’s physical appearance, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other protected classes.