According to Statista, more than 2.6 billion people use Facebook every month and Instagram has a good one billion monthly users. It is to be expected that HR managers will also use social media professionally: in addition to advertising purposes, also for recruiting and employee screening.
Personal life and spelling provide information about an applicant’s competence
It started with a focus on private media presence: The Social Media Report HR 2010 showed that ten years ago, around 60 percent of entrepreneurs googled applicants for vacancies and posted them on professional and private platforms such as XING or StudiVZ rummaged for them – paying particular attention to alcohol and drug use, provocative or suggestive posts and usernames, and the applicant’s spelling and credibility.
Then, in 2017, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) published a similar study, which found that in 2015, 81 percent of HR professionals surveyed used social media platforms as one of several recruiting tools. According to the results, one of the main reasons was to become aware of suitable candidates who are not actively looking. Almost half of those surveyed (43 percent) stated that they also used social media to screen applicants.
The most popular portals: LinkedIn in first place
In Germany, special attention is currently being paid to professional qualifications and skills in both screening and recruiting: around 70 percent of the HR managers surveyed in a study by AK Social Media B2B in 2019 stated that they use LinkedIn in particular for professional purposes . 68 percent of those surveyed use Facebook, slightly less XING. According to the study results, YouTube and Twitter are in fourth and fifth place among the social media channels most used by HR professionals – so it is not absolutely necessary to appear professional here.
Incidentally, the SHRM study revealed that slightly more HR professionals carried out the social media check before the job interview than afterwards. About a third of those surveyed had apparently already disqualified an applicant based on the screening results, which was also the result of another representative study by Bitkom Research for Bitkom from 2018.
For HR professionals, professional matters come before private matters
This survey makes it clear that a lot has changed in terms of recruiting and screening since 2010 – in addition to the private aspect, which allows recruiters to assess the trustworthiness of an applicant, the following aspects have also been added: 81 percent of recruiters pay particular attention to the professional qualifications disclosed online, almost 70 percent on statements on specialist topics and about half on statements on other competing companies.
However, applicants should not rest on their laurels on their professional profile, but also make sure that private profiles are only accessible to private contacts. After all, too many party pictures hardly go down well with any company – and after all, one to two out of ten HR managers also pay attention to aspects such as political attitudes during the screening.
In addition, it is advisable to attach importance to completeness and credibility in every professional profile, which means paying attention to the accuracy of the information and defining clear core topics. It is also obviously well received by HR managers not only to have a profile on LinkedIn or XING, but also to be active on the platforms and to take part in discussions within their own department. Of course, professionalism is required here, as is the case with profile pictures and user names.
The creation of a screening-resistant social media profile can be time-consuming, but it is worth it: “Anyone who can present themselves well in social networks definitely has advantages when looking for a job,” says Bernhard Rohleder, CEO of Bitkom.
Olga Rogler / Editor finanzen.net
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