The effects of negative content in social networking profiles on perceptions of employment suitability

Abstract

As a step toward further understanding the relationship between social networking content and perceptions of employment suitability, the present study assessed the impact of three examples of potentially negative content. Namely, this research focused on self-absorption, opinionatedness, and alcohol and drug use, where a sample of 436 hiring managers evaluated experimentally manipulated hypothetical Facebook candidate profiles. The results demonstrated that content related to each construct had a negative impact on person-organization fit and overall candidate evaluation.Moreover, self-absorption had the largest negative effect. There were also significant hiring manager age interaction effects. Older hiring managers more heavily weighted less opinionated content with respect to overall candidate evaluation and content without alcohol and drug use for person-organization fit. K E Y W O R D Semployment suitability, hiring outcomes, social networking

Job seekers' attitudes toward cybervetting: Scale development, validation, and platform comparison

“…When posting these types of personal information, most people are not expecting employers to use them to evaluate job‐related competencies (Mgrditchian, 2015). However, behaviors, values, or competencies shown through group affiliations, friendships, photographs, and commentary are exactly what employers look for to determine the organizational fit of an applicant (Davison et al, 2016; Hartwell & Campion, 2019; Roulin & Bangerter, 2013; Tews et al, 2020; Zhang et al, 2020). Seminal privacy research from both Altman (1975) and Westin (1967) shows that there is a preference for boundaries between an individual and the environment in which they operate.…”

“…For instance, instead of looking at LinkedIn profiles for all applicants, organizations may look at LinkedIn for one and Twitter for another. This discrepancy is another cause for concern, given that hiring professionals often look for negative information on personal social media sites (i.e., Facebook), but look for more positive information on professional sites such as LinkedIn (Hartwell & Campion, 2019; Tews et al, 2020). Further, applicants are not all posting the same type or quantity of information on their profiles.…”

“…Social media is so common in industrialized cultures that not having an online profile sometimes results in employers making assumptions about social‐, technology‐, and computer‐related competencies (Stoughton, Thompson, & Meade, 2015). Additionally, recent studies with professional hiring managers (Berkelaar, 2017; Hartwell & Campion, 2019; Tews, Stafford, & Kudler, 2020) and university students with no actual hiring experience (Melton, Miller, Jensen, & Shah, 2018) highlight that both groups provide similar reasons for wanting to engage in cybervetting and similar ways in which they are influenced by an applicant's social media presence. For example, both hiring managers and students believe that screening applicants’ social media profiles allow for an assessment of their personality that is less influenced by impression management as compared to conducting an in‐person interview.…”

Social Media Screening and Procedural Justice: Towards Fairer Use of Social Media in Selection

“…As screening only certain applicants can be understood as a form of discrimination, it is recommended to perform the screening for all applicants (Bentley 2013;Davison et al 2016). Since employers' screening of social media in selection often occurs ad hoc and in an arbitrary manner (Schroeder et al 2020;Wade et al 2020), organizations should make efforts to standardize the process (Davison et al 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Tews et al 2020;Wade et al 2020) in order to give all participants the chance to obtain positive results. Overall, a considerable number of authors point to the necessity of articulating a clear, standardized policy for carrying out social media screening (Elzweig and Peeples 2009;Davison et al 2012Davison et al , 2016Lam 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Wade et al 2020) and disseminate it to the employees (Elzweig and Peeples 2009).…”

“…This may apply to provocative or inappropriate photographs, display of poor communication skills, pictures showing alcohol or illegal drug use, false information about the applicants' qualifications, or negative comments on previous employers or colleagues (Brown and Vaughn 2011). Even traits like self-absorption and having strong opinions displayed on social networks have been found to be viewed negatively (Tews et al 2020), while factors as simple as language, spelling, and grammar can equally influence an employer's impression on the applicant's intelligence, competence, and employability (Scott et al 2014;Becton et al 2019). Furthermore, it is possible for other people to post embarrassing content about a person on social networks-for example, when leaving comments on other people's profiles, or "tagging" friends in photos or videos (Jones and Behling 2010).…”