I was recently quoted in the print and online versions of The Age and SMH on social media and recruitment. The article sprouted much conversation after its release – including a healthy debate on my Facebook status after I shared the link.
I’ve included an excerpt of the article below – would love to hear your thoughts.
In an age of oversharing online and with a third of the Australian population on Facebook, many recruiters and companies cannot resist the temptation to screen potential candidates via social media.
In the US, employers have taken their screening one step further, with reports employers have asked job candidates to log in to their Facebook page during the interview.
Employers were interested in looking beyond a person’s resume, said Kate Kendall, who specialises in recruitment via social media.
”You can’t rely solely on your CV any more,” Ms Kendall said.
”Companies are more interested in a holistic view of who they are hiring. You can’t really try and hide.”
Ms Kendall said she did a Google search on a strong candidate for an IT position and discovered a Twitter reference to him smoking marijuana.
”While he still got the job, that’s not something he’d actively put on a cover letter or resume,” Ms Kendall said.
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The rest of the piece continues here:
Kate Kendall 
I’ve started looking for a new job in the last month and have experienced the exact scenario described in the article. One of the recruiters whom I had been been exchanging job details with tried to contact me a couple of days before Christmas, but had been unsuccessful (as I had been on a plane at the time). When I returned her call the next day, she said that she realised that I was probably doing some holiday travel as she had checked my Twitter status (which had something about annoying security checks at airports). The thing is, I had never given her my twitter details.
As someone who is careful with my status updates on Twitter, and who locks down Facebook to only close friends, I didn’t have too much to worry about, but it still gave me pause to see that recruiters were actually doing their own form of background checks.
Shortly after, I was surprised when a recruiter contacted me via LinkedIn about a position (a very good position as it turned out). I had always treated LinkedIn as a bit of a joke – I was there because everyone else was, but never put much effort into my profile. Well literally one week after updating my profile with actual details, the recruiter found me. Definitely a whole new world of recruitment!
It’s simply a matter of common sense.
Only problem is, common sense doesn’t appear to be very common.
Love it Stan!