Hatch

Rachel Hatch
Writing 150
Professor Shelli Spotts
December 1, 2014
Should School Districts Use Social Media in their Decision-to-Hire Process?
Social media and social networking surrounds us. Whether it is for good or for
bad, we cant escape it. Even in elementary school counseling, one of the career
possibilities I am currently exploring, you cannot escape the effects of social media
especially when searching for a job or even possibly being fired because of
something you have posted on social media. School districts have strict hiring
policies, and I am questioning how my use of social media today will affect my ability
to get hired in the future. Is it right to deny someone of a job because of something
they posted on social media five or even ten years ago? Do businesses have the
right to stalk us on social media and determine our eligibility for a job based on that?
I believe that companies and school districts should be looking a potential
employees social media accounts as part of their decision to hire process, but with
certain policies or stipulations in place.
Before researching for this paper I had never really put much thought into
how social media usage can influence the work force, especially how it can affect
your ability to be hired for certain jobs. There is no universal policy if companies can
look at employees or future employees social media accounts. Maybe that will
cause people that have posted bad things on social media or have had bad things
posted about them to shy away from companies that do check their past social
media usage. They could be losing some very valuable employees.

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In the article entitled Friend or Foe? The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Social
Networking Sites for HR Decisions it tells about a college student that applied for a
summer job as a camp counselor. Everything with the interviewing process went
well, but eventually she wasnt hired because they had seen pictures on her
MySpace page of her binge drinking (Davison 153). The article continues by giving
statistics about the use of social networking websites in a business setting.
The statistics I found the most interesting was that only 13% of human
resource departments used social networking sites for screening applicants, and
only 18% planned to use them in the future for screening of applicants (Davison 153154). The statistics were from a survey done by the Society for Human Resource
Management in 2008, so the statistics are old but those percentages were a lot
smaller than I thought they would be. Does it just seem like a more prevalent
problem than it really is or are the people that do not get hired because of something
they have posted on social media just put up a big fuss about it?
Another big section of the article by Davison focused on if social networking
sites can actually be used to provide reliable and valid, job-relevant information
(Davison 155). We are taught growing up that not everything you see on the Internet
is true and anyone can put whatever he or she wants there. The truth can also be
twisted and things can look different than they actually are. If things on the Internet
are ever changing and very likely to not be the full truth why would businesses look
at applicants online social media accounts? That seems counterintuitive to me. Are
they really that needy for more information that they have to turn to the Internet to
see what they can dig-up on a person? Davison also brings up the point that
individuals can just as easily create fake profiles to impress their employers (Davison

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156). How are companies going to be able to judge, which posts and profiles are
true and which ones are made up?
In Kevin D Allens article titled, Social Media in the Workplace it says, If the
topic is off limits during an interview, it is also off limits to access social networking
sites in search of that information (Allen 5). That is a very interesting point to make.
It was geared towards sexual preference, religious identification, disabilities and
things of that nature. That is a good idea to have but its not like the social media
sites can just conveniently block you from seeing that information. Even though they
cannot technically use the information that they might stumble across on a social
networking site as a reason to not hire the employee, it will still be weighing on their
mind when they are making a decision. You cannot erase peoples memory of
information they have already read.
In the article by Charles K. Trainor it suggests that before hiring a school
district employee the district should require a credit check to review their credit
background (Trainor 49). This same idea can be applied to social networking
background checks. But as the article also points out, Of course, the district cant
verify some application responses (Trainor 49). There is still no way to know if the
applicants are lying or telling the truth on their social media sites.
Lawrence Hardy also said, Educators may be reluctant to embrace social
media because of the very real problems this new form of communication can
present (Hardy 11). Many school districts may be reluctant to use social media as a
way to find out background information about their employees because it can
present problems. Different people could interpret the information they learn on
social media about the applicant differently. Also there are certain laws and policies

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in place in some states that would limit the information the districts could gain from
social media.
In the article by Brian J. Lamoureux he gave some very solid advice. He said
that employers need to keep in mind that there is no guarantee that the information
that they receive through social media sites will be reliable (Lamoureux 11). While
employers need to take this into consideration they also need to know what they are
looking for on their applicants social media site.
From the article in Forbes Magazine it said that the reddest flags for most
employers seem to be drugs, drinking, bad mouthing former employers, and lying
about ones qualifications (Hill). The article also said that negative traits to look for
would be obvious like mood swings, being very emotional in their post, or positive
traits would be extroversion and being friendly. They could find this out by looking at
how many friends the applicant has and what type of pictures they take (Hill).
For a study done at Northern Illinois University they looked at college student
candidate's Facebook pages to form impressions of the students. They looked at
their profiles for five to ten minutes and then made a decision based on the
information that they found if they would be considered a good employee or not.
The study, explained in Forbes magazine, said that they looked at what
information was publicly available on their Facebook profiles. This included them
looking at photos, status updates, and conversations with friends. They then
assigned each student a score based on the number of qualities that they found that
they considered important to being a good employee. Examples of those qualities
given were, emotional stability, conscientiousness, extroversion, intellectual
curiosity, and agreeableness (Hill).

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Source: How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants [Infographic]. Undercover Recruiter. December
2014. Web.

Based on my research, the best solution concerning whether school districts

can look at applicants social media accounts to make hiring decisions, I concluded
that school districts should not have that right, unless specific guidelines are in
place. School districts are very strict in their hiring practices but in relation to social
media there needs to be policies in place so if one bad thing was posted on a social
networking site it will not completely disqualify the applicant from getting hired.
If social media sites are looked at as part of the decision to hire practice they
should be reviewed by at least two people. They should also be looked at for specific
information in relation to applicants ability to be hired and nothing more. The
problem with this solution would be that the person doing the reviewing process
would have to be very honest and only look at what they were specifically supposed
to look at. They also could not have biases based on the applicants race, sex, or
other distinguishing factors.
Another suggestion I have is that businesses should only be able to look at
the applicants social media accounts for a period of five years prior. I think this will
give them an idea of the applicant without going through all their personal history.
And applicants will not be judged based on all the crazy stuff they did in their
teenage years. School districts should be looking at the person as they are now, not
who they used to be on social media a couple of years ago.
One interesting piece of advice Kashmir Hill gave in the article from Forbes
was that [the] key takeaway for hiring employers: The Facebook page is the first
interview; if you dont like a person there, you probably wont like working with them.

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I this a very true point, but employers should still give their applicants an in-person
interview, in addition to looking at their social media profiles.
As shown above in the infographic, employers gave reasons why they did or
did not hire an employee based on information found on social media about them.
The reasons stated above are good guidelines for school districts to base their social
media evaluation of possible employees on. Some of the positive reasons why
candidates were hired that I liked were that they gave a positive impression of their
personality and organization fit, profile showed candidate was creative, and
showed solid communications skills (How Employers Use Social Media to Screen
Applicants).
I think school districts should especially be looking at information like that
because the people they are hiring will be working with kids. School districts should
take questions into consideration such as: are they a good fit for the job overall and
will they know how to work creatively with kids? The negative reasons should
provide school districts with red flags so they do not hire applicants that would be a
negative influence on the children or even possibly harm them in any way.
I also suggest that school districts should have rubrics in place to grade the
applicants social media profile. They could assign the applicant numbers based on
the positive qualities they learned about in their media profile and take away
numbers based on negative qualities they find in their profile. An example of this
would be, if they score above a 15 they will then be considered for the job.
Before school districts make any changes to their hiring practices, they first
need to conduct their own research. I would do this by having them ask members in
their Human Resource department if they thought using social media sites, as part of
the decision to hire process, would be effective. If looking at applicants social media

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profile was found to be an effective tool, they also need to decide what specific
information they are trying to learn from the applicants profile. Different things will
work for different people. They should collectively come to a conclusion based on
their survey and then they should enforce a policy, if needed.
If human resource departments decide that looking at applicants social
media sites and profile would be effective, then they should take my suggestions into
account. They should have multiple individuals view the social media account to cut
down on biases. They should also have specific rules of how far back in the past
they can look at and what information they can look at.
With the popularity of social media sites increasing and new technology
expanding employers are having to change the way they review applicants for job
positions. The Human Resource department of school districts should take
applicants social media profiles and activity into account when they are deciding
whether they want to hire them or not. As stated above, certain stipulations should
be in place as to not invade the applicant's privacy or draw a bias based upon
certain information found during their search. Technology is constantly changing
around us so school districts would need to be flexible and continually updating their
hiring policies.

Works Cited
Ackerley, Nicky. Social media in the workplace. Veterinary Nursing Journal. 29.6
(2014): 192-193. PDF file. 4 November 2014.

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Allen, Kevin D. Social Media in the Workplace. Allen & Vellone, P.C. PDF file. 30
October 2014.
Brown, Victoria R. The Writing of the (Facebook) Wall: The Use of Social
Networking Sites in Hiring Decisions. Journal of Business and Psychology.
26.2 (2011): 219-225. Print. 30 October 2014.
Davison, K. Friend of Foe? The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Social Networking
Sites for HR Decisions. Journal of Business and Psychology. 26.2 (2011):
153-159. Print. 29 October 2014.
Dillon, Suzanna Rocco, Nate McCaughtry, and Sue Hummel. School Districts
Hiring Practices for Physical Educators. Physical Educator. 67.4 (2010): 209221. Print. 4 November 2014.
Hardy, Lawrence. Social Media from the Top. American School Board Journal.
201.1 (2014): 10-13. Print. 4 November 2014.
Hill, Kashmir. Facebook Can Tell You If A Person Is Worth Hiring. Forbes. (2012).
Web. 1 December 2014.
How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants [Infographic]. Undercover
Recruiter. December 2014. Web. 1 December 2014.
Lamoureux, Brain J. How Social Media Is Changing The Hiring Game. NACE
Journal. 73.1 (2012): 8-11. Print. 4 November 2014.
Lanham, John R. Social Media and the Workplace. Morrison Foerster. 22.1 (2010):
1-7. 8 November 2014. Web. 4 November 2014.
Naper, Linn Renee. Teacher Hiring Practices and Educational Efficiency.
Economics of Education Review. 29.4. (2010): 658-668. Print. 4 November
2014.
Trainor, Charles K. Checking for a Checkered Past. American School Board
Journal. 194.11. (2007): 48-49. Print. 30 October 2014.