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Leading industry experts answer your strategic HR queries
This past year has seen the number of people on social networking sites around the globe explode. Groups and networks have been created for virtually every profession, hobby and institution imaginable and, at present, this trend shows no sign of abating. Recent research from networking site Viadeo shows just how popular the internet has become as a recruitment tool. One in five of the 600 employers it questioned admitted to finding information on potential employees on the web and 59 percent said it influenced their decision-making. A quarter of HR decision-makers have actually rejected candidates because of the personal information they discovered online (Viadeo, 2007).
Social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Viadeo, undoubtedly provide a great source of recruitment information but companies must make sure that they use these sites responsibly and, more importantly, legally, when tapping into them as a source of potential future employees. With so much personal information floating around the internet, it is incredibly tempting for any hiring organization to use social networking sites to vet potential job candidates. Only those people with the strictest privacy settings can prevent personal information such as past and current employers, interests and even those...