As of September 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 14 million people are unemployed. At this rate, an employer can easily receive hundreds of responses to a single job posting. While a large applicant pool certainly gives the employer a wide variety of choices, it also makes background checks an important tool to be able to choose the most qualified candidate.
Most job applicants are familiar with being asked to sign a waiver so that the prospective employer can run a credit report, which includes information about an employee's credit-payment history and other credit habits from which the employer might draw conclusions about the applicant. A criminal background check, particularly for jobs where an employee will work with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, is also routine.
While the latest background screening tool -- the social media background check -- is considered new, it has actually been in use for quite some time. Almost all employers have been doing some sort of informal background checking on their own and they rely on this information for recruitment purposes. This means that prior to an applicant being called for an interview, chances are that someone has performed a "Google" search on the applicant on behalf of the employer, looking for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages, as well as blogs and other accounts. No law officially prohibits employers from searching social networking sites while conducting their own background checks of job applicants.
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Source: law.com
By: Vivian Luckiewicz
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2 comments:
Nowadays, social media background checks are an important and useful tool for all employers who want to choose the most qualified candidate. Generally, employers use social sites such as Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. I personally agree with these checks in the workplace!
yes it is, most of the employers do their background check on their potential employee. So as an employee you should submit yourself from thorough background check or run it for yourself.
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