Social Media in Employee Selection and Recruitment:  Theory, Practice, and Current

Challenges
Richard N Landers, Gordon B Schmidt
Springer, 3 May 2016

Reference:

Cite (Landers and Schmidt, 2016)

LANDERS, R. N., & SCHMIDT, G. B. (2016). Social media in employee selection
and recruitment: theory, practice and current challenges. Switzerland, Springer
International Publishing, pp.88,89.
http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4519047.

overview of Social Media as a Selection Device

The evaluation or assessment of social media or social networking websites (SNWs is a
relatively recent development in the arena of personnel selection, but over last 10 years
or so, it has become somewhat mainstream. For example, a society for human resource
management (SHRM. 2013) study found that 20% of the participating organizations
surveyed used SNws for screening, with another 12% planning to use SNWs. This is
not a trivial amount of use for a single, intended predictor of job performance as
cognitive ability tests are used by approximately 16-20% of employers, and
approximately 42 use aptitude tests (Rogelberg, 2006: Society for Industrial &
Organizational Psychology. 2001). However, about 68% of the SHRM (2013) study
respondents indicated that they have never used sNws for screening job candidates
and do not plan to. a percentage which has stayed roughly consistent since 2008. This
is interesting, suggesting that the use of SNws for personnel selection has leveled out
somewhat. and that perhaps SNw screening has not become the panacea that it was
once touted to be. However, here it should be noted that the SHRM (2013) survey may
represent a more HR-sophisticated audience than other organizational audiences or
populations who might also make organizational hiring decisions. For example,
according to Stoughton. Thompson, and Meade (2015. the use of Google or other social
media screens by organizations in general often ranges from 27% to roughly 65%.
employers seem to have more In particular, the SHRM survey indicated that on SNws
concerns about legality and of evaluating the information than they did in 2008. For
example, in 2008. 54% of the respondent who did not use SNWs screening indicated
that they had "concernlsl about legal risksdis- or characteristics by 2013, 7 of respon-
covering information about protected that concern. Concerns about the relevance of the
information job obtained from SNws increased from 36% in 2008 to in 2013 and
concerns

Write review read Page 18 Previous Next View all about whether the SNws provide
information about candidate fit for the organization also increased from 26 to 61% over
that same time period. In considering these findings, it appears that perhaps HR
community members, or those HR professionals with enhanced training and education,
have begun to decide that social media might not be as useful for making inferences
regarding the future performance of job candidates as once believed, and that its use
for such a H.K. Davison et al. purpose carries greater legal risks than originally
assumed. The SHRM (2013) study findings with respect to the most common websites
used may support this supposi- tion. For example, LinkedIn remains the most commonly
used SNw for screening (92%, up from 85% in 2011), and use of professional or
association SNws has also increased (from 9% in 2011 to 14% in 2013). In contrast,
use of Facebook and MySpace for screening has declined over that period (from 78 to
58% and from 13% to 4 respectively). However, we should note that the reduced use of
MySpace, for example, could be due to the more general decline in use of that site. and
the decline in the use of Facebook might be due in part to increased use of pri- vacy
settings by users, reducing its usefulness for employers. However, Twitter use for
screening purposes rose from 11% to 31% from 2011 to 2013. which could be due to its
greater openness than Facebook or MySpace, as well as greater familiarity with Twitter
by organizations. Thus, although use of more job-relevant sNWs appears to be on the
rise, we cannot necessarily conclude that employers are using the more personal SNws
(e.g., Twitter) less for screening purposes. At the very least, recent evidence suggests
that the 2 base-rate of sNw use for selection purposes HRM, 2013) is comparable with
the base-rate situational judgement test use (23%), personality testing (22%), and
interviews with behaviorally anchored rating scales (26%; Meinert, 2015) Though again,
surveys of possibly less sophisticated HR populations appear to show rather high use
rates, and perhaps as high as 65 (Stoughton et al., 2015) Indeed, we suspect that
managers who have the power to hire and assess applicants and yet are less familiar
with employment laws and standard HR practices will be highly likely to take the route of
the CEO of nefits because (a) it is so easy to, for example, Google a job applicant at
this point and thus (b) is very tempting to do so In fact, we would go so far as to assert
that it may very well be fun and entertaining for the assessor to conduct such web-
based searches on potential future work col- leagues, and thus the 65% found by
Stoughton et al. (2015) may very well be closer to the norm of the use of social media
for selection purposes. We consider the greater use of job-oriented websites when it is
used for assessment to be a positive development, given the concerns that we detail in
the following tions. Specifically, in the remainder of this chapter, we address the various
legal issues of using SNws for selection, as well as the psychometric and ultimately the
very issues of whether any reliable and job-relevant information can be gleaned from
SNws. We also provide a series ofrecommendations and best practices for using social
media in selection and conclude with suggestions for future research in this area.

Legal Issues

Lawful Issues of Using Social Media for Selection In analyzing whether social media
ought to be utilized from a legal point of view, it is essential to make a qualification
between whether assessing SM for screening is lawful or not, or under what media was
utilized conditions, it might be considered. regardless of whether Social Media as a
Personnel Selection and Hiring Resource of the substance in social media can be
legitimately faultless.

Finally, employers need to be particularly cautious when considering international hires.

Other nations have even more restrictive privacy regulations, including the European
Union's Data Privacy Directive (Davison, Maraist, Hamilton. & Bing. 2012). With respect
to screening of applications using social media, the Data Privacy Directive requires,
among other things that European applicants give explicit permis- sion for searching
SNWs (see Dowling. 2009: Massey, 2009). Insofar as organiza- tions become
increasingly global in orientation. we should expect the Data Privacy Directive to
become more of an issue when conducting assessments of SNws for screening
purposes. particular issue would be the fact that avoiding use of such social media
information for the screening of European applicants. done in order to prevent violating
the European Union's Data Privacy Directive, while assessing such information for
applicants who are US citizens, could potentially be a violation of Title VIl of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 based on national origin (i.e.. disparate treat- ment in the hiring
process).
and negatives Page 8 o read Write review tment via Social Media Sites positives and
negatives Previous Next View all 5.3.2 Workplace outcomes 5.3.2.1 Positive There is a
growing body of research linking social media to positive workplace outcomes,
particularly regarding job attitudes , job performance. and enhancing the reputation of
the organization. For example, one study found that employees will follow their
employers on social media. provided that the employer is actively using social media to
convey relevant information (Eren & Vardarlier, 2013). Furthermore, this may result in
increased levels of organizational commitment from these employees (Eren &
Vardarlier, 2013. However. other research suggests that the impact of social media
usage on organizational commitment may be mediated through an increase in job
satisfaction of the employees who use social media while at work (Moqbel. Nevo. &
Kock, 2013) 5 Social Media Use: Antecedents and outcomes of sharing 89 In addition to
improving job attitudes. S usage may also have value for work place productivity. Some
employees rely on social media tools to gather information about the environment or
competitive market as well as to keep contact with customers (Page 8 nt via Social
Media Sites positives and negatives Previous Next View all ers (Leftheriotis &
Giannakos, 2014). In particular, proper management of social media sites has been
found to be an important element of organizational performance in service industries
such as hotels (Kim et al., 2015). Furthermore, several studies have suggested that
properly using social media can increase work productivity indi- rectly, as these tools
help to improve job attitudes and communication among employees, which in turn leads
to an increase in job performance (e.g., Cao. Vogel Guo, Liu, & Gu, 2012;
Charoensukmongkol, 2014). Collectively these studies sug- gest there are certainly
positives to purposefully selecting employees with profi- ciency in the use of social
media. In particular for service based industries. examining a job applicant's social
media site may be a good predictor of their social media proficiency which in these
industries would be directly related to performance. Similarly, social media may help
improve creativity and innovation processes. Specifically, social media may encourage
networks of relationships at all phases. including access, creation, development,
maintenance, and finally leveraging toward future action (Pigg, 2014). Research has
suggested that employees use social media to engage in a form of knowledge
management (Sigala & Chalkiti. 2015). By sharing. discussing, and creating information
online through social media, individu- als engage in cognitive processes that may lead
to creativity. For example, employee creativity was positively correlated with levels of
engagement on so edia as sites used (Sigala & Chalkiti. 2015). Although well with the
number of social media not causal in nature, these initial findings suggest that soc edia
may provide important opportunities for creative expression and collaboration amongst
employ- Researchers may therefore consider developing assessment methods to better
predict which applicants will be able to use social me r advantage when working on
creative projects offer benefits through employee al media, and SNS in particular, ma
connectivity outside of the workplace. Recent research has identified how SNS can be
p-oriented work goals used to accomplish both transact

Write review Page 89 t via Social Media sites positives and negatives Previous Nextu
View all important opportunities for creative expression and collaboration amongst
employ ees. Researchers may therefore consider developing assessment methods to
better predict which applicants will be able to use social media to their advantage when
working on creative projects. Social media, and SNS in particular, may also offer
benefits through employee connectivity outside of the workplace. Recent research has
identified how SNS can be used to accomplish both transactional and relationship
oriented work goals outside of the workplace (Mak & Chui, 2013). Specifically,
Facebook creates an environment in which workplace relevant communication can be
handled in a less formal way. This presents a situation in which the traditional
organizational hierarchy and power rela- tionships that regulate communication norms
can be superseded (Mak & Chui, 2013) Allowing employees to opportunity to address
workplace concerns in a less formal setting can provide a more open and honest
dialogue between employees and gener- ally enhance the social capital of the
organization. Companies with strict social media policies that limit usage for work-
related connection and communication may miss out on the potential benefits of this
informal communication. These informal net- works may provide opportunities for
interested applicants to approach organizational members to get a better understanding
of job requirements prior to applying. poten- tially increasing the selection pool or fit of
applicants to the organization. Social media offers a variety of ways in which it can
enhance career development (Roman, 2014). For example, self-presentation through
information posted on
Add

Understanding Management

Richard L. Daft, Dorothy Marcic

Reference:

DAFT, R. L., & MARCIC, D. (2017). Understanding management. Australia,

Cengage Learning, p
Social Media - managers do much of their recruit ing today via the Internet, including
social media sites such Facebook, and Twitter. Interestingly, a survey by staffing found
that high-achieving young professionals deem a company's social media reputation
important as the job which company they want to work a media campaign in 2013
recruit 10,000 new soldiers. companies in China have become at using this approach
because traditional online recruiting boards in candidates to make them valuable.
Therefore, managers turn to social media such as Weibo,aTwitter-like messaging
service, to build a community of potential candida China's Lenovo Group reports finding
70 good candidates during three-month recruiting surge via social media, including
LinkedIn, Weibo, a Tianji, a Chinese professional social networking LinkedIn's 2013
Global Recruiting Trends Report surveyed 3,300 talent acquisition man- agers around
the globe and found that HR recruiters are becoming more social, mobile, and data-
driven. Recruiters have historically had little data on external candidates, but
professional social media can provide recruiters with an immense amount of data, such
work experience, skills, certifications, achievements, connections, and education. For
companies that pay for its profile-searching system, for example, Linkedln has added a
service called "People you may want to hire’’ Linkedin has created algorithms that
search through its massive amounts of data and identify candidates with the exact
combination of skills, back- ground, expertise and passion a company might be looking
for LinkedIn report indicates that 3 percent of recruiters list social and professional
networks as their number-one long- lasting recruiting trend.The number who named
data analytics long-lasting trend increased points since 2012.
DAFT, R. L. AND MARCIC, D.

Understanding management

  managers do much of their recruit ing today via the Internet, including social media sites such
Facebook, and Twitter. Interestingly, a survey by staffing found that high-achieving young professionals
deem a company's social media reputation important as the job which company they want to work a
media campaign in 2013 recruit 10,000 new soldiers. companies in China have become at using this
approach because traditional online recruiting boards in candidates to make them valuable. Therefore,
managers turn to social media such as Weibo,aTwitter-like messaging service, to build a community of
potential candida China's Lenovo Group reports finding 70 good candidates during three-month
recruiting surge via social media, including LinkedIn, Weibo, a Tianji, a Chinese professional social
networking LinkedIn's 2013 Global Recruiting Trends Report surveyed 3,300 talent acquisition man-
agers around the globe and found that HR recruiters are becoming more social, mobile, and data-driven.
Recruiters have historically had little data on external candidates, but professional social media can
provide recruiters with an immense amount of data, such work experience, skills, certifications,
achievements, connections, and education. For companies that pay for its profile-searching system, for
example, Linkedln has added a service called "People you may want to hire’’ Linkedin has created
algorithms that search through its massive amounts of data and identify candidates with the exact
combination of skills, back- ground, expertise and passion a company might be looking for LinkedIn
report indicates that 3 percent of recruiters list social and professional networks as their number-one
long- lasting recruiting trend.The number who named data analytics long-lasting trend increased points
since 2012.

In-text: (Daft and Marcic, 2017)

Your Bibliography: Daft, R. and Marcic, D. (2017). Understanding management. 1st ed. Cengage

Learning, p.373.