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MCQXXX10.1177/0893318914554657Management Communication QuarterlyBerkelaar and Buzzanell
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Management Communication Quarterly
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Online Employment © The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0893318914554657
Career Capital: Exploring mcq.sagepub.com
Employers’ Use of
Online Information for
Personnel Selection
Brenda L. Berkelaar1 and Patrice M. Buzzanell2
Abstract
This study explores how employers report using online information to
evaluate job candidates during personnel selection. Qualitative analysis
of 45 in-depth employer interviews emphasizes how new and different
information visibility afforded by the Internet simultaneously replicates and
shifts how employers evaluate reconstructed information about candidates
during personnel selection. Data revealed that employers evaluate the
relative presence or absence of certain types of visual, textual, relational, and
technological information in patterned and idiosyncratic ways. We discuss
the likely consequences for theory and practices of personnel selection and
careers, emphasizing the increasing expectations for workers to curate digital
career capital to manage the expanding contexts within which employers
construct and evaluate professional and/or workplace identities.
Keywords
cybervetting, personnel selection, digital career capital, curating online
identity, information visibility, organizational processes, impression
management
1The University of Texas at Austin, USA

2Purdue University, IN, USA
Corresponding Author:
Brenda L. Berkelaar, Department of Communication Studies, The University of Texas at
Austin, 2504A Whitis Avenue (A1105), Austin, TX 78712-0115, USA.
Email: b.berkelaar@austin.utexas.edu
Downloaded from mcq.sagepub.com at Bobst Library, New York University on April 29, 2015
2 Management Communication Quarterly
Employers consider personnel selection a central strategy for establishing

competitive advantage (Kraaijenbrink, 2011). Effective personnel selection
depends on acquiring sufficient, trustworthy information about job candi-
dates to evaluate who fits present and anticipated organizational needs
(Dipboye, 2014). Until recently, such information focused on work-related
information sources primarily authored by job candidates themselves.
However, employers increasingly question the credibility of the information
job candidates provide, citing concerns of extreme impression management
(Weiss & Feldman, 2006) and deception (Griffin, Chmielowski, & Yoshita,
2007). Moreover, as employers try to avoid libel claims from former employ-
ees, references have become less available or provide little more than dates of
employment (Shilling, 2009). When added to employers’ growing liability
for negligent hires (Peebles, 2012) and competing legal and economic pres-
sures (Dipboye, 2014), it is clear why employers want alternative, easily
accessible sources of candidate information.
Given easy access to the Internet’s burgeoning supply of information
(Bohn & Short, 2009) with its promises to address the growing information
gap, most employers now search online (Cross-Tab, 2010). The Internet pro-
vides access to sources and types of information difficult or impossible to
access until recently, despite employers’ long-term interest in such informa-
tion (Solove, 2008). Even given ongoing ethical debates and unclear legal
precedent regarding online information use for personnel selection (Peebles,
2012), most employers cybervet—using the Internet to acquire informal, non-
institutional, other-sourced, and/or aggregated information (Berkelaar,
Scacco, & Birdsell, 2014) that job candidates did not share or necessarily
intend for employers’ use (Solove, 2008).
Although many employers consider cybervetting analogous to conven-
tional information-seeking processes such as background checks, it is not.
Cybervetting changes the amount, source, order, context, type, and/or chan-
nel of information (Berkelaar, 2010). Such changes alter evaluations (Case,
2012) and subsequent personnel decisions (Jablin, 2001). In addition, Internet
uses and affordances alter expectations of what information is or should be
available (Berkelaar, 2014; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Such expectations are
consequential. In offline contexts when expected information is absent,
employers are more likely to disqualify job candidates (Jablin, 2001). Yet, the
processes underlying employers’ acquisition and use of online information
for personnel selection remain largely unexamined.
This study examines how employers report using online information to
evaluate workers during personnel selection. Although personnel selection
involves hiring, promotion, and termination, our focus is primarily on
employers’ reported sensemaking during hiring. Analysis of interview data
Berkelaar and Buzzanell 3
reveals how employers acquire, recontextualize, and use the presence and
absence of different types of online information to make sense of job candi-
dates. Thus, this study addresses ongoing calls to consider everyday practices
of personnel selection (Dipboye, 2014) and the impact of new technologies
on organizational processes and outcomes (Treem & Leonardi, 2012).
Understanding how employers use online information can inform personnel
selection practices—the outcomes of which affect organizational productiv-
ity, employee satisfaction (Ployhart & Weekley, 2010), individual quality of
life, and social justice (Cheney, Lair, Ritz, & Kendall, 2009). This study also
highlights how growing information visibility—and expectations thereof—
affects employment relationships and career management. In particular, we
consider how cybervetting increases demands on individuals to curate their
digital professional image in spatio-temporal contexts previously excluded
from personnel selection. We begin by describing the information context of
contemporary personnel selection before examining how cybervetting’s
characteristics likely influence job candidate evaluations.
The Context and Characteristics of Cybervetting

Personnel selection “is a dynamic process in which job seekers and various
agents of the organization exchange information and construct meaning in
the pursuit of their individual objectives” (Dipboye, 2014, p. 1). Employers
make sense of job candidates by piecing together available information to
determine whether a good match exists between individual offerings and
organizational needs. Such sensemaking often involves quick disqualifica-
tions using easily acquired information (Dipboye, 2014), particularly when
supply and demand favor employers. Employers tend to be more diligent
about increasing information quantity rather than improving quality (Jablin,
2001) or using acquired information more effectively (Dipboye, 2014).
The Information Context of Cybervetting

In post-industrial personnel selection, employers primarily evaluated job
candidates using information from work-oriented communications (e.g.,
résumés, applications, interviews, references). Given growing concerns
about candidate-supplied information, employers want to acquire informa-
tion from sources they consider more credible (Solove, 2008). For example,
access to non-work contexts, unobtrusive observations, and people other than
job candidates themselves promise insights into a person’s true identity, char-
acter, and work ethic (Berger & Douglas, 1981; Solove, 2008). Moreover,
growing assertions that employees are extensions of an organization’s image
and brand (Edwards, 2005) amplify employer interest, encouraging employ-

ers to view such information as valuable, even necessary, for assessing fit
(Berkelaar et al., 2014). Employers who buy into the employee-as-brand
mindset assume that employee actions outside contexts or times typically
associated with paid-work contracts can affect an organization’s image—and
should be controlled (Edwards, 2005). Employers have long wanted such
information; however, until recently, acquiring it was usually cost- or time-
prohibitive, limited to recommendations, references, or conversations made
possible by shared networks. Now, the growing popularity of online activities
(Bohn & Short, 2009) and advances in search and aggregation make different
sources and types of information visible—that is, both available and easily
accessible (Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Although employers’ desire for such
information is not new, how employers are fulfilling this desire is quite new.
Cybervetting—the process whereby employers seek information about job
candidates online—is typically covert, enabled by the Internet’s extractive
possibilities (Ramirez, Walther, Burgoon, & Sunnafrank, 2002). Cybervetting
often focuses on acquiring information from non-institutional, non-govern-
mental, and informal online sources (Berkelaar et al., 2014) such as social
media (Table 1). However, search engine and aggregator results often inter-
mingle social media and governmental, institutional, and/or (former) employ-
ment information. By shifting sources and contexts, cybervetting alters the
scope of information and the proportion of work versus non-work informa-
tion, and when and how different information becomes included in personnel
selection. Such changes affect evaluations and subsequent decisions (Case,
2012; Jablin, 2001), making cybervetting an important, timely site for under-
standing contemporary personnel selection.
The Communicative Characteristics of Cybervetting

Despite its growing popularity, cybervetting’s communicative characteristics
remain taken for granted. Cybervetting is often considered an extension of
offline practices (Peebles, 2012), although scholarship on information seek-
ing and communication technologies suggests otherwise (Metzger, Flanigan,
& Medders, 2010; Ramirez et al., 2002). We argue that cybervetting’s com-
munication characteristics—its how, when, what, where, and why—likely
affect job candidate evaluations and subsequent personnel selection
decisions.
Prior to cybervetting, candidates had more control—if limited expertise—
when communicating the availability and value of accumulated career cre-
dentials. Job candidates made particular information visible to employers via
interactive, if asynchronous, processes expressly designed to gain
Table 1. Comparing Cybervetting and Traditional Background Checks.
Information . . . Cybervetting Traditional background checks

Sources • Search engines • Government agencies (e.g.,
• Social network sites Sex Offenders Registry,
• Aggregators Federal Election Commission,
• e-commerce Criminal Records)
• Virtual worlds • Consumer reporting agencies
• (Micro-)blogs (e.g., Credit Bureaus)
Types • Age • Credit information

• Interests/hobbies • Criminal records
• Political views • Political donations
• Relationships • Vital records
• Relational/familial status
• Sexual orientation
Access • Individually determined • Institutional/organizational
• Restricted permission required
• Corporate privacy • Individual notification and
policies approval required
Construction • Informal • Formal
and • Emergent • Institutionalized/legislated
Management • Due process requirements
Goals for • Individually oriented • Collectively oriented
Information • Social; and/or • Public records
Construction • Personal/private • Institutional records
employment (e.g., résumés, cover letters, interviews; Lair, Sullivan, &

Cheney, 2005). Although references offer secondary sources, candidates
often select recommenders designed to reinforce impression management
goals (Shilling, 2009). Consequently employers view this information with
less trust than unobtrusive observations (Berger & Douglas, 1981) that cyber-
vetting affords. Although people historically were hesitant to trust informa-
tion acquired via computer-mediated communications, research suggests this
tendency may be changing (Metzger et al., 2010; Walther, Van Der Heide,
Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008).
Employers find cybervetting desirable because job candidates have less
control over online information—presumably making it less subject to
extreme impression management. Online information becomes visible as a
result of communicative interactions, communicative extractions (Ramirez
et al., 2002), and information aggregation (Solove, 2008). It is not just job
candidates, but also other people and technologies, that create, share, order,
and compile information—often for purposes other than employment (boyd,
2007). Even if individuals restrict access to social media sites, impressions
are shaped by “friends,” physical attributes (Walther et al., 2008), the design
of online spaces (Back et al., 2010), and the (unintentional) aggregation and
information visibility of the technologies themselves (Zuboff, 1989). In con-
trast to credit reports or criminal background checks, most online information
is created via informal, emergent processes (boyd, 2007) without due pro-
cess. Even if individuals attempt to manage online information, data frag-
ments often remain after removal attempts (Solove, 2008), sources may
refuse to remove information, and information may be broadcast further than
expected as networks are more expansive and visible than people realize
(boyd, 2007). Consequently, employers acquire information candidates may
not have intended to share with them or to share in that way (Solove, 2008).
Such information is desirable for those trying to get a sense of candidates’
real identities (Berger & Douglas, 1981) although it may not always be as
credible as often believed.
Information acquired online is reconfigured based on the algorithms of the
particular search engines or aggregators (e.g., Bing™ produces different
results and differently ordered results than Google™. Because cybervetting
occurs asynchronously and remotely, information becomes temporally and
physically decontextualized from its original context. Even if the information
acquired was framed appropriately for its originally intended communicative
context and audience, employers likely recontextualize job candidate infor-
mation given personnel selection goals because evaluators’ embodied context
and evaluative intent shape attributions (McGlone & Pfeister, 2009).
Decontextualization and recontextualization affect evaluations as communi-
cations intended for other audiences and contexts are filtered through indi-
vidual differences (Mayfield & Carlson, 1966; Metzger et al., 2010) and
professional norms (Cheney et al., 2009). Given that research demonstrates a
lack of interrater reliability for popular offline selection strategies (Mayfield
& Carlson, 1966), it is likely such effects will be amplified during cybervet-
ting because information cues often become more salient and attributions
more extreme in distributed contexts (DeAndrea & Walther, 2011).
Yet, employers rarely consider the implications of their information-seek-
ing practices. Employers often assume expertise enables accurate evaluations
(Miron-Shatz & Ben-Shakhar, 2008). However, consistent with satisficing
and common information-seeking heuristics (Metzger et al., 2010), employ-
ers stop searching after quickly reviewing initial search results (Berkelaar et
al., 2014). Negative information is rarely verified (Jablin, 2001) and is often
more salient when evaluating job candidates (Jablin, 2001; Webster, 1964).
More problematically, attempts to discount irrelevant information tend to
make such information hyperaccessible and therefore more salient (Miron-
Shatz & Ben-Shakhar, 2008).
Many people presume online information is better because it is easier to
access more data online (Treem & Leonardi, 2012); however, online informa-
tion tends to be incomplete and fragmented (Solove, 2008). The common
presumption that more is better often obscures the need to critically evaluate
information quality and relevance (Dipboye, 2014; Metzger et al., 2010).
Such beliefs will likely improve evaluations for those who disclose more, all
else being equal.
In particular, cybervetting can increase the proportion of non-work infor-
mation considered during personnel selection (Cross-Tab, 2010) because the
Internet makes certain information more visible: interests, hobbies, interper-
sonal interactions, religious/political views, relationship/parental status, and
sexual orientation (Bohn & Short, 2009). The Internet also provides more
relational, technological, and visual information than most conventional
sources and does so in a streamlined fashion (boyd, 2007). Research on
offline selection highlights how such differences can alter attributions (Jablin,
2001) such as when access to visual cues alters evaluations (e.g., attractive
applicants ranked higher; Dipboye, Fromkin, & Wilback, 1975).
Our point is not that cybervetting is a completely different personnel
selection process; rather, we argue that cybervetting’s communicative char-
acteristics are an understudied yet consequential aspect of personnel selec-
tion. Cybervetting’s communicative characteristics expand the spaces and
time within which job candidates are evaluated, the content considered, and
the order and configuration of information—all of which affect evaluations
and subsequent decisions (Case, 2012). To locate and elaborate more fully on
the ways cybervetting’s characteristics affect personnel selection, we asked
employers to describe what information they acquire and how they use, and
have used this information to inform job candidate evaluations.
Method
Sample
Participants included 45 employers (24 men, 21 women) who had actively
participated in hiring. Ranging in age from 23 to 60 years (median = 35),
participants were primarily Caucasian (82%). The sample primarily included
human resource (HR) staff, recruiters, and hiring managers (~75%) because
these are the primary roles involved in personnel selection. Because hiring
decisions involve other people, we deliberately sampled a diverse set of

occupational roles across organizational levels: HR personnel (9) and HR
directors (6), hiring managers (12), recruiters (7), directors (4), team mem-
bers (3), owners (2), executives (2), and an employment lawyer (1).
We recruited participants from diverse industries. Because norms differ
across worker classifications (white-collar, blue-collar; Cheney et al., 2009),
differences in the types of workers recruited could affect online information
acquisition and use. Participants represented consulting (3), financial ser-
vices (8), government (1), K-16 education (8), law (2), information technol-
ogy (6), manufacturing (2), media/communication (4), non-profits (5),
recruiting/staffing (6), service (2), utilities (3), and entertainment (2) indus-
tries. The count of industry type is greater than the sample size because some
participants listed their organization as bridging multiple industries.
Data Collection
The first author recruited participants using purposive, snowball sampling to
help identify information rich, key informants, who could offer insights of
theoretical interest and were willing to discuss sensitive topics (Charmaz,
2006). We contacted initial participants primarily via cold calls and profes-
sional contexts, recruiting a few via social media. Our intent was to create
different recruitment chains as disconnected from the researchers as possible
to mitigate limitations of snowball sampling. We initially targeted HR per-
sonnel and recruiters. We expanded levels and roles as potential characteris-
tics of interest (e.g., industry, organization size, type, organizational role,
occupation) emerged from the data. After each interview, participants were
asked whether they could recommend people who might offer different per-
spectives. We contacted subsequent participants based on whether they
seemed likely to help refine and test emerging themes (Charmaz, 2006).
Our semi-structured interview protocol allowed us to gain unexpected
insights while focusing the research on a central topic of interest (Charmaz,
2006). The first author initially asked participants to describe personnel
selection experiences and types and sources of information used. She then
asked about interpretations and evaluations made using online information.
More than half of the participants spontaneously described their use of online
information for personnel selection. Besides asking for examples of specific
situations, the first author probed for types and sources of information and the
relevance of such information for personnel selection as needed. Given
cybervetting’s debated legality and ethicality and many organizations’ pro-
tection of hiring practices as proprietary (Shilling, 2009), we included indi-
rect and hypothetical questions known to increase response rates and accuracy
for sensitive questions (e.g., “Can you tell me about someone who . . .”;
Charmaz, 2006). With participant consent, all interviews were audiotaped,
transcribed, and verified against recordings for accuracy. Interviews aver-
aged 54 minutes (range: 30-90 minutes), for a total of 38.7 hours recorded
and 682 single-spaced transcription pages, along with more than 300 pages of
handwritten field notes, and 12 pages of typed notes for three corrupted/poor-
quality recordings. After 40 interviews, responses seemed to be replicating
earlier participant responses. To verify this assumption, the first author inter-
viewed five additional employers, and we discussed emerging results with
experts. These processes helped confirm our conclusion that the data were
saturated (Lindlof & Taylor, 2010).
Data Analysis
As part of a larger project, this study focused on how employers reported
using online information for personnel selection. A separate analysis exam-
ined employer and applicant data on information ethics and an emerging digi-
tal social contract (Berkelaar, 2014). For this study, we relied on systematic
inductive and abductive data analyses (Ezzy, 2002). Taking a constant com-
parative approach informed by sensitizing concepts (Charmaz, 2006), we
compared and contrasted each subsequent interview with what had (not)
emerged previously. We used Atlas.ti™ to memo throughout data collection
and analysis. We noted emerging themes, codes, and ideas suggested by each
interview. On our first reading, we recorded initial thoughts and reactions
paying particular attention to how participants reported identifying and eval-
uating applicants’ online information. We attended to the information types
acquired and interpretations and valuations employers constructed.
After initial coding, we reread and recoded data; ran reports of all coded
items, including surrounding text to retain context; and then grouped codes
into initial axial groupings, reevaluating occurrences of the themes in the data
set based on new groupings. We generated alternative groupings to question
our initial assumptions and to test and evaluate emerging codes: We sorted,
disassembled, and reassembled the codes multiple times, independently, col-
laboratively, and in conversation with experts (Charmaz, 2006). During this
process, we noted how participants evaluated different types of information
in terms of absences and presences. Once confident we had identified promi-
nent themes, we reread the data, coding for additional occurrences and testing
themes by identifying negative cases. For example, initial uses of technologi-
cal information seemed isolated to people working in technology industries
or roles. After rereading the data, it became evident that people used techno-
logical artifacts to evaluate job candidates across industries and occupations.
To validate findings, we conducted member checks with participants from

different companies, industries, and levels (Lindlof & Taylor, 2010) and con-
sulted with content and method experts. Furthermore, we provided interview
examples and excerpts to enable readers to judge the credibility of our analy-
sis (Charmaz, 2006).
Findings
We focus on how employers report using the presence of visual, textual,
relational, and technological online information combined with the
absence of expected online information to construct and evaluate careers
and employability. These data show how employers’ evaluations and
expectations replicate and shift conventional personnel selection processes
(Table 2).
Employers’ Reports of Cybervetting

Consistent with prevalence surveys (e.g., Cross-Tab, 2010), the vast majority
of employers directly acknowledged cybervetting. Although the remaining
participants denied cybervetting, all participant responses, except perhaps
two, described behaviors consistent with cybervetting (e.g., “doing a quick
Google check”). Overall, cybervetting processes tended to depend on partic-
ular job search characteristics and employers’ habits. Most participants
reported cybervetting “interesting applicants” soon after receiving résumés;
cybervetting was deferred, when applicant pools were large. A few partici-
pants reported cybervetting at multiple stages (e.g., for screening interviews
and to inform final decisions). These were often people who reported rela-
tively detailed online exploration (e.g., following “rabbit trails” to see “where
the information led”). Consistent with habitual Internet use (Bohn & Short,
2009), participants generally referenced cybervetting in an off-hand manner
describing how “you just go online” and “Google them or whatever,” “you
know Facebook them and such.”
Although their responses suggested some engagement in cybervetting,
HR personnel reported discouraging cybervetting and generally considered
cybervetting an anomaly outside their control: “You’re always going to have
that 1% who was burnt previously by somebody who fooled them” using
conventional selection strategies. Such denials might address cybervetting’s
legal uncertainty or another reason not evident here. Yet, these employers’
reports illustrate that online information—whether present or absent—affects
job candidate evaluations.
Table 2. Online Information Employers Report Using for Personnel Selection.
What information How used
Present or visible online information

Visual •• “Definitely Pictures” •• To disqualify because of “red
•• Illustrations flags”
•• Avatars ○ Red flags are not limited to
•• Site design salacious information, vices,
or illegal activity; they may
simply be “unprofessional”
○ Employers rarely validate
accuracy
Textual •• What, how, and amount •• To qualify or disqualify

written, including: candidates in terms of character,
•• Spelling and grammar professionalism, written
•• “Textspeak” communication skills
•• Online content (e.g., blogs, •• To assess whether people had a
forum posting, pins, status singular passion aligned with the
updates, tweets, websites). position
•• Email addresses
Relational •• Connection to same people •• To assess and/or verify

•• Industry and roles of reputation and trustworthiness
connections •• To evaluate relevant social
•• Number of connections capital
•• Demographics of connections
Technological •• Ways people used •• To qualify candidates who

technologies participated in “relevant
•• Technologies used projects,” received high
•• Timestamps rankings, and/or aligned with
•• Settings professional expectations
•• Participation indicators (e.g., •• To disqualify candidates who
counts of postings, responses, visibly engaged in “a lot” of
community ranking) leisure activities, who did not
use adequate privacy settings,
or who did not appear fully
committed to work
Absent or invisible online information

•• Lack of professional or work- •• Primarily to disqualify candidates
related information online during later stages, especially
•• Lack of regular participation in when compared with otherwise
forums related to occupation equally qualified candidates
or job •• Not limited to social media
•• De facto or functional positions
invisibility from having popular •• It might not apply to people
name or sharing name with considering covert occupations
celebrity
Evaluating the Presence of Different Types of Online

Information
As they constructed images of job candidates’ competence, character, and
motivation, employers recontextualized and evaluated the presence of infor-
mation types online. Visual images tended to be more salient, often salacious,
disqualifiers, whereas employers reported using textual, relational, and tech-
nological information to qualify and disqualify candidates.
Visual information. When asked what information they sought online, partici-
pants consistently responded “definitely pictures.” More than 90% reported
using online photos to evaluate job candidates. Although photos tend to be
excluded from contemporary U.S. applications, employers have used other
visual information previously.
Visual cues such as attractiveness or attire as well as “choice of font” and
paper “matter” to evaluations of professionalism (Lair et al., 2005) and exper-
tise, although effects may disappear for exceptionally qualified people
(Dipboye et al., 1975). These data indicate a shift in focus. How applications
looked used to be “such a big deal [and] unfortunately folks had to finagle a
lot with fonts and looks and stuff.” Now standard online applications “strip”
previously used visual cues for professionalism as online forms “force” peo-
ple to “conform” to standard fonts and formats. This automation removed an
“easy indicator” of professionalism and “now just kind of takes the focus off
that [formatting] to really focus on the content.” In place of abstract format-
ting cues, participants reported using online images to evaluate whether can-
didates met baseline expectations for professionalism.
Typically, participants used online photos to disqualify candidates who
evidenced the “problematic” “red flags” of popular media reports (e.g.,
Eaton, 2009). Employers disqualified applicants who posted photos of
“inappropriate” and “lewd” behavior, “pictures of them doing drugs or
something like that,” or “naughty pictures, or . . . habitual, ‘I got drunk this
weekend,’ kind of pictures and those kinds of things that would not reflect
well.” More than a third of the participants used euphemisms to describe
“photography that has raised my eyebrows.” A few others—including a
recruiter who did executive-level hiring—offered more detailed examples,
disqualifying people for “inappropriate” photos involving “nudity” or
“sticking your tongue down somebody’s throat and posting that picture
online.” Less salient, but repeatedly noted, were photos of “unprofessional
behavior” where the person “wasn’t the kind of person I would want to work
for me.” Such evaluations applied culture-specific symbols as unvalidated
heuristics to simplify evaluations. Even when prompted, no participant
reported confirming whether the negative information was accurate or

“belonged” to the job candidate (e.g., pictures of candidates drinking from
“red Solo™ cups” indicated “excessive partying” or “underage drinking”
whether or not candidates were of legal drinking age or drinking non-
alcoholic beverages). In sum, participants reported using notable presences
of “questionable” online information to quickly disqualify applicants from
executive- through entry-level positions.
In contrast to the frequent, often specific, descriptions of image-informed
disqualifications, employers did not offer examples of images that would
qualify candidates, although a few suggested it might be possible. As exem-
plified by one manager, job candidates would rarely benefit from online
information because “the Internet provides more of the red flags. I’m not sure
that it becomes the capstone that sells anybody.” Only two participants con-
sidered the possibility that visual information might qualify candidates for
further review. However, they provided vague examples, juxtaposed with
more specific negative information:
I’d have certain things highlighted or flagged if they disturbed me, or if I found
them impressive. I’d still put all the info in front of the execs. If they had just
commissioned a wide search and I found someone, ah, you know, with boobie
pictures up, I would definitely not put that person in front of them . . . I would
hope that recruiting takes, you know, the average sales or customer service
person just as seriously.
Not only does this example illustrate how employers flag information that
might contribute to evaluations, it also suggests expanding professional
expectations for workers across organizational levels. Employers may now
cybervet “average” candidates for entry-level sales and customer service
positions as well as more prominent upper-management positions that have
been conventionally held to higher information visibility standards.
Moreover, the specificity and preponderance of negative examples report-
edly used to disqualify candidates demonstrates the continuing salience of
negative information during personnel selection (Jablin, 2001). This is
likely because these employers reported using images to avoid “risk” and
“minimize costs.”
When making sense of online artifacts, employers consistently recontex-
tualized information through an employment lens. Thus, even if a job candi-
date’s behavior might be considered appropriate for a picture’s original
context or intended audience, employers disqualified candidates whose
online information violated norms for employment audiences or contexts. “I
wouldn’t hire them,” participants repeatedly asserted:
If they leave something on their Facebook account that they shouldn’t have
there and they know who I am and . . . that I’ll be able to see that stuff, they’ve
made a decision that impacts their job rather than me making a decision that
impacts their job.
Thus, employers expected applicants to be aware of cybervetting and employ-

ers’ evaluative perspective, even as employers themselves abdicated responsi-
bility. Instead, employers placed responsibility (and blame) on candidates:
Evaluations depend on applicant behavior (“they’ve made a decision”)
because applicants should be aware of employment audiences (“know who I
am”). Employers did not consider how their communicative involvement or
cybervetting’s covert processes affected evaluations or whether visible online
records provided sufficient or accurate indicators of identity or employability.
Yet, these descriptions demonstrate how employers communicatively de-
and, then, recontextualized applicant information. Participants decontextu-
alized online information—failing to consider intended contexts and
audiences. Simultaneously, employers recontextualized through contempo-
rary frames of “professionalism” (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007). Moreover,
employers consistently articulated the socially acceptable “party line” that
protected information (e.g., age, race, pregnancy status) would not be con-
sidered. Participants emphatically asserted that even if they acquired irrele-
vant information, they could exclude it from evaluations—“I can ignore
it”—despite findings to the contrary (Miron-Shatz & Ben-Shakhar, 2008).
Thus, in contrast to offline sources, online information provides access to
different visual cues, often during early stages of review, thereby altering
what informs early impressions.
Textual information. Employers did not exclusively focus on salacious vices

or illegal behavior. Three quarters of the participants described using textual
information to construct and evaluate images of job candidates. Employers
reported using online textual information to evaluate written communication
skills, professionalism, character, motivation, and passion.
Given that employers continue to rank written communication as a top
skill (Graduate Management Admission Council, 2014), it is unsurprising
that employers used online information to assess writing skills. Participants
repeatedly noted how online sources access “everyday” writing in contrast to
formally edited cover letters and résumés considered subject to extreme
impression management. Participants reported examining various writing
contexts online to efficiently “construct a picture” of applicants’ career poten-
tial regardless of job: “I look at their writing. I look at how they write online.
I look at their blogs. I look at their Facebook. I look any place where they’re
writing online.” Such information provides access to the “everyday interac-

tions” (e.g., email, text, memos) that dominate many employees’ work.
Employers also reported using textual information to construct and value
applicants’ professional image. How as well as what and how often applicants
wrote mattered when making sense of candidates’ professionalism. Emphasis
on spelling, grammar, and formal English presumably evidenced levels of
professionalism, attention to detail, and suitability for employment. In par-
ticular, a subset of four employers who did not text or use social network sites
themselves expressed greater concerns about writing than those who reported
using a broader range of media. As one manager emphatically maintained,
I really cannot stand typos, and I don’t like it when people type in—jargon is
not the right word—but just the shorthand that people use . . . the one who does
write out all the words and is kind of maybe a little more like me and kind of a
freakazoid about that kind of stuff . . . if they’re more well-spoken than the
others in writing, that’s a plus.
As illustrated above, employers assess job candidates’ careers through their

own expectations, habits, and perceptions. They often adopt offline commu-
nication standards for online communication practices, although research
suggests offline and online contexts are not necessarily analogous (Williams,
2010). Even when probed to describe situations in which “shorthand” (text-
speak) might be appropriate, “good writing” standards of formal spelling and
grammar either added “a plus” or presumably subtracted from the value of
particular workers’ careers. Moreover, evaluations often depended on
homophily as they elevated the character of people “a little more like me.”
Thus, in addition to assessing written communication as a skill, employers
also constructed and morally judged professional identities based on written
language: “So, on a probably more potent note, spelling acumen, grammar,
use of pejorative terms on profiles . . . you don’t want to hire people, who you
know for a fact, have no moral or ethical standards.”
Consistent with offline selection (Jablin, 2001), employers did not con-
firm negative online information, despite its easy construction or communi-
cation by other people or technology. Employers’ confidence in their initial
impressions (e.g., “you know for a fact”) likely derived from their reported
assumptions that the Internet offered insights into “the whole person,” trust in
their expertise and intuition (Dipboye, 2014), and pressures of “limited time.”
In addition to evaluating skill, professionalism, and character, employers
constructed a sense of job candidates’ mission and passion using textual infor-
mation. Participants reported using the frequency and (perceived) amount of
time someone spent writing about a particular subject online. How much and
how often a person wrote about a particular topic operated as a proxy for moti-
vations. When assessing content created by or about applicants, employers
noted that online information provided access to individuals’ core passions or
drive: Online, “you” can learn “tons about their true interests and hobbies,
[plus] often times I can tell if someone has too much time on their hands.” Such
examples evidence employers’ assumptions that people have a singular pas-
sion, and should choose and do work in it (Berkelaar & Buzzanell, 2014).
Some reported specific examples where they did not hire or promote people
who had visible online information about “incompatible” non-work hobbies.
Moreover, employers consistently suggested that visible “free time” should be
spent doing something worthwhile from employers’ perspective (“not that
Farmville game”) otherwise candidates’ motivation would be questioned.
Unlike visual information, textual information sometimes helped qualify
rather than disqualify job candidates, particularly in white-collar work.
Employers ascribed greater professional commitment to candidates who had
online evidence of work-related behavior outside work times and spaces
compared with those who did not. Participant responses suggested that the
“right” online information could add value and help discriminate the “good”
applicants from the “best.” As one IT recruiter exemplified,
[I want to see their] life outside of the interview, see if they are trying to help
others in the support forums . . . [It’s] the final endorsement . . . If there’s
nothing there, why would I want to hire them over someone else . . . if you’re
using that as just kind of a gauge of what a person is doing with their life, it’s a
good thing to do.
In essence, textual information provided a way for employers to assess

“what a person is doing with their life” to see whether their work was more
than “just a job.”
Although these descriptions seem to initially suggest that employers tally
positive and mostly negative online information to form their evaluations,
this is not the case. A few participants acknowledged how the broader eco-
nomic context affects evaluations of online information. Three participants
noted employers’ willingness to “compromise” professional expectations if
candidates address crucial skill shortages. For example, one manager reported
how programmers with “in-demand” skill sets could “misspell words and . .
. still get jobs” despite persistent critiques about “atrocious” communication.
As an employment lawyer reiterated,
You know, when there’s 4% unemployment, employers might not have as

much luxury to just turn down people for stupid reasons; but when there’s 10%
unemployment, they do because there’s a whole bunch of other people waiting

for that job.
Thus, the economic context—or perceptions thereof—moderates online

information’s effect on evaluations.
Relational information. Who someone knows has long been a factor for getting
a job (Granovetter, 1973). What is different with cybervetting is that online
sources, particularly social network sites, make larger, and often different,
connections within applicants’ networks visible in new ways. Even as people
leverage online connections to find jobs, these data indicate that employers
also use relational associations to verify credentials, competencies, and
character.
Just under half of these employers reported using visible relational infor-
mation to verify social capital and trustworthiness. For example, almost one
third of the employers provided explicit examples describing how they hired
candidates because of rich and deep online networks: “He got the job
because he could just log into LinkedIn and show us his network there, all
those people . . . and his connections to me.” Particularly in jobs such as sales
and recruiting, or positions involving leadership or customer service, rela-
tional visibility legitimated expertise and access to the “social capital” needed
to be a successful employee.
Employers also reported using visible networks to assess the trustworthi-
ness of applicants’ character or reputation. The visibility of a candidate’s net-
work provided employers a way to “find people I trust that are already a little
more verified.” Visible connections to the employer (i.e., “connections to
me”) increased confidence in a candidate’s character and provided a “form of
reference check.” In addition, visible connections to key people across rele-
vant industries established trustworthiness and enhanced reputational evalu-
ations. In one example, a recruitment manager used applicants’ visible
connections to (re)present the candidates as “well-connected professional[s]”
to the “high profile employers” who were their customers. Employers did not
question the nature of the relationship between visible connections, the moti-
vations leading to the connections, or the connections not visible online.
Rather, employers intuited that “I can quickly see” how “close” a candidate
is to influential or desirable contacts, assuming that the existence of connec-
tions with positive others offered votes of confidence.
Technological information. More than half of these employers constructed a

sense of job candidates using technological information. How people used
technologies and what technologies they used were central to employers’
constructions and evaluations of candidates’ competencies and character.

Employers have used technological cues previously. For example, typewrit-
ten application forms communicate a higher level of professionalism, skills,
and/or commitment than those completed by hand. However, online sources
of information allow access to more and different forms of technological
artifacts.
These data illustrate how employers used technological artifacts to evalu-
ate candidates’ work ethics and skills, often in non-work contexts. New tech-
nologies make artifacts of non-work behavior more visible. In these data,
applicants with visible artifacts of leisure were often devalued or disquali-
fied. For example, games on social media sites leave time stamps and other
activity indicators on status pages (e.g., “[Name] just bought a cow.”).
Employers often questioned the motivation of candidates who played these
games—or simply participated in Facebook itself. As exemplified by one
manager, “If you are on Facebook all the time or playing those games, what
are you doing with your life?” Thus, technological artifacts left by game
playing presumably indicated lack of motivation as employers emphasized
the need for applicants to be “solely focused” on finding work.
However, if technological information aligned with employers’ expecta-
tions, it could improve evaluations. This was particularly evident during later
stages of personnel selection or when employers sought passive applicants.
Employers ascribe “professionalism” and “visible expertise” when they view
candidates engaged in ongoing participation in “relevant projects.” Employers
often extrapolated expertise and professionalism from the number of postings
and responses and any other indicators demonstrating a posting’s popularity
or usefulness:
You can see [online] if they’re involved in, like, open-source projects, to see
how they deal with collaborative efforts. If you’re looking into some of the
newer technology, like cloud computing, you can see if they’ve got expertise in
that or what their thoughts are or are they more traditional in their programming
or are they comfortable learning new things and working outside the box and
exploring.
Positive evaluations of job candidates were amplified when community

members or aggregators offered high rankings, thereby validating a candi-
date’s value. Employers thus used visible involvement in online forums to
ascribe candidates’ occupational philosophy and competence level using
rankings and indices from other users and technologies to validate
assessments.
Although the topic of cybervetting lends itself to discussions of privacy,

these employers rarely considered privacy during these interviews except
when evaluating professionalism. Half of our participants evaluated job can-
didates’ professionalism based on their privacy settings. As exemplified by
one recruiter, “This particular guy . . . happened to have a public Facebook
page, which I found extremely weird. So I automatically start judging and
thinking he must be a voyeur or something, right?” Such assessments were
prominent in, but not limited to, situations involving hiring or recruiting IT
professionals. Employers emphasized that “nothing is private” online even if
settings are at the highest level or items are deleted. Why? Because “technol-
ogy fails” or settings change revealing information people believe to be
secure. Even as they acknowledged the limits of technological privacy set-
tings, most employers considered failure to use them as a “testament to per-
sonal stupidity,” “irresponsibility,” and indicated a lack of overall
“professionalism”—even if no problematic information was disclosed. As
one manager argued, questionable information compounded questions about
candidates’ professionalism: “If they would post that out publicly and not
turn on the privacy settings, what are they going to do at my company?”
Thus, employers expected candidates not only to manage what is technologi-
cally visible online but also to signal intention to manage information online.
Overall, employers used the presence of visual, textual, relational, or tech-
nological information to make sense of job candidates—sometimes to quickly
disqualify (i.e., visual information), and at other times, to consider whether
candidates should be qualified or disqualified. Throughout this process,
employers placed responsibility on candidates to manage their online infor-
mation. As outlined in the next section, such expectations required job candi-
dates to manage not only online information visibility but also (de facto)
invisibility.
Evaluating the Absence of Expected Information

In response to popular media reports, many job candidates restrict online
accounts, remove potentially offensive information, and otherwise do their
best to digitally scrub problematic information, going so far as to deactivate
or delete accounts (Eaton, 2009). Their concerns are not unfounded. Surveys
(Cross-Tab, 2010) and these data confirm that employers reject applicants
based on red flags: “Really and truly I think they’re looking for dirt, you
know? They don’t want to hire the one that has the pictures of the parties and
those types of things. They’re looking for the more responsible ones . . .” Red
flags lower evaluations.
Unfortunately, these data also suggest that removing or hiding online

information may lower evaluations. Valuation of any asset—including one’s
career, employability, or reputation —depends on the visibility of informa-
tion. Just as lacking a credit history lowers credit scores, these data suggest
that lack of visible online information negatively affects employability
assessments. Almost half of these employers expected candidates to have an
online presence, noting that the absence of online information lowered evalu-
ations: “If I’m at the very end of the search and I’m trying to decide between
three candidates who all seem fairly equally qualified, that [relative presence
or absence] might help me make that final decision between those three.”
Thus, employers not only evaluate candidates based on what online informa-
tion is present, they also evaluate candidates based on absent information
they expected to find.
Visible online presence is particularly but not exclusively necessary for
people in certain occupations. For example, job candidates for communica-
tion or social media positions clearly benefited from demonstrating visible
rather than reported expertise as one creative director vehemently asserted:
“If they have nothing online, it is clear that this is not the career for them.”
He went on to provide examples from a recent search where the final candi-
date was chosen because she was the only one with a substantial online
presence:
I mean if you want a job in Internet marketing, you should have a face out
there, for sure, somehow. You know, make yourself a blog, make yourself a
web site, put yourself on social networking sites, but do it professionally.
Thus, unsurprisingly, digital presence is necessary for people who want to be

employable in occupations with clear connections to social media or the
Internet.
Yet, it is not simply social media jobs that require digital visibility.
Employers across industries offered specific examples where they disquali-
fied candidates because expected online information was missing. One man-
ager considered lack of regular online activity evidence that the position did
not align with the candidate’s “one, true passion,” what this manager believed
necessary for establishing the organization’s “competitive advantage.”
Especially when juxtaposed with the presence of information about leisure
activities, the absence of expected work-related information disqualified can-
didates. Interplays of presences and absences are evident in another execu-
tive’s talk about how one worker’s blog “clearly” demonstrated interest in
baking. The executive went on to represent this individual’s hobby as indica-
tive of a “bad fit” as she was “clearly interested [in] a different passion.”
Thus, employers disqualified candidates who were absent online or who were
not present in expected spheres.
In general, these employers used the absence of expected information to
construct a sense of job candidates as less committed. They did not consider
alternative explanations for information absences. They situated their assump-
tions of visibility in contemporary notions that equate visibility and transpar-
ency with honesty. Indeed, the majority of these employers argued that job
candidates should be unconcerned by cybervetting if they have “nothing to
hide,” a phrase repeatedly used by these employers to justify cybervetting.
By framing themselves and/or cybervetting as honest and straightforward
and implicating those who hide or remove information as less honest or ethi-
cal, employers may reflect a naïve understanding of the potential for misin-
terpretation. This also may arise from having a “boring,” more “normal,” and
“less decorated life”: “I don’t know how I would feel if I was someone who
had, you know, a colorful lifestyle . . . You know, someone with a story [e.g.,
‘biker chick,’ ‘gay/lesbian’]. Would I feel differently? Maybe I would.” Like
this director, participants may feel as though they “have nothing to hide”
because they conform to dominant social norms.
Thus, although these employers advised digital scrubbing before job
searches, their responses also indicated that attempts at digital clean slates
may be detrimental. Not having an online presence creates information void
during evaluation processes, which may be as much of a liability as having
red flags. Not only is expertise defined through visibility (Treem & Leonardi,
2012), our data suggest job candidates might also need to communicate inter-
ests and passions for specific types of work to be considered valuable in the
marketplace.
Such need for a digitally visible career is complicated by “information
noise.” To be valuable, desirable information needs to be clearly linked to
particular applicants. For people with popular names, information about peo-
ple with the same name can create de facto or functional invisibility—or
potentially problematic misinformation. Although it is beneficial to disasso-
ciate from red flags, candidates need to be visible when seeking employment
or promotions. Unless people work diligently and have access to IT expertise
and resources, it is difficult to make their names, and associated information
stand out from the professional athletes, beauty queens, show dogs, semi–pro
wrestlers, and others with whom candidates report sharing names (Berkelaar,
2010). Moreover, employers did not express concerns that information might
be inaccurate or might not refer to candidates under scrutiny—rather, their
focus seemed to be on minimizing any possible perception of negative effect
to their organizations because of online information that seemed to be con-
nected to particular individuals.
Discussion
This study contributes to communication and personnel selection research in
two ways. First, by examining what information employers report acquiring
online and how they indicate making sense of acquired and “missing” infor-
mation, we help explicate cybervetting as a new tool for employment sense-
making (Table 2). Employers’ use of easily accessible secondary sources and
unobtrusive observations aligns with research on information seeking (Berger
& Douglas, 1981; Case, 2012; Treem & Leonardi, 2012) and personnel selec-
tion (Dipboye, 2014; Jablin, 2001). However, cybervetting differs in how it
leverages increasing information visibility to expand contexts, times, and
roles considered during selection and associated impression management.
Empirically examining cybervetting answers calls to consider everyday per-
sonnel selection (Dipboye, 2014) and to explicate when, if, and how online
and offline processes align (Treem & Leonardi, 2012; Williams, 2010).
Second, in light of increasing information visibility and other technology
affordances (Treem & Leonardi, 2012) undergirding cybervetting, we show
how cybervetting offers a useful context to examine contemporary assump-
tions and expectations about work and careers and the contested, changing
nature of contemporary professionalism and employment relationships.
Although new technology affordances have been explored within conven-
tional organizational boundaries (e.g., when using organizationally spon-
sored or developed tools and/or within paid-work times, places, or roles;
Treem & Leonardi, 2012; Zuboff, 1989), this study examines how cybervet-
ting expands personnel selection beyond conventional time–space–role
boundaries of paid work. In highlighting how information visibility and
expectations thereof appear to be reshaping personnel selection, our data
suggest that employers now expect, acquire, and make sense of more—and
oftentimes different—non-work information during personnel selection.
Specifically, cybervetting further erodes boundaries between work and non-
work in ways similar to, yet beyond, fuzzy work–home boundaries (Golden,
2013). Thus, cybervetting offers a context in which to address calls for
research on redefinitions of what counts as work and non-work in the digital
era, including how familial, civic, personal, and professional identities are
constructed, promoted, and evaluated (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007; Gregg,
2011).
Although our study provided access to employers’ sensemaking of appli-
cants’ online information, our approach and sample size limit generalizability.
Despite gathering data from diverse industries, organizations, and roles, we
cannot make claims about potential occupational, cultural, or demographic
characteristics. Future research should consider different occupational or
organizational scenarios. For example, individuals interested in working for

clandestine organizations or occupations requiring discretion (Scott, 2013)
might benefit from online invisibility. Further ethnographic and experimental
work could identify differences between what employers report and what they
do. For example, direct observation that includes think-aloud protocols
(Jääskeläinen, 2010) could illuminate how employers construct job candi-
dates’ professional identities when cybervetting as compared with, or in com-
bination with, conventional practices. This would enhance understanding of
contemporary constructions of professionalism, employability, and employ-
ment relationships from employers’ perspectives.
Theoretical Implications
This study illuminates how cybervetting and the information visibility and
collapsed spatio-temporal contexts undergirding it are changing the assump-
tions and everyday work of personnel selection and impression management
and expanding these practices into non-work life. Such extensions increase
sociotechnical and communicative demands for employers who cybervet and
for current and potential employees who now need to digitally curate their
professional image. Employers expect qualified job candidates to consciously
and consistently construct an online professional presence across time, space,
and (role) contexts previously excluded from personnel selection. At the
same time, job candidates are increasingly distanced from these sensemaking
and sensegiving processes (Weick, 1995). Because employers extract infor-
mation during cybervetting, workers lack many of the cues used to adjust
impression management and sensegiving (Hogan, 2010) in the more interac-
tive if asynchronous exchanges of conventional personnel selection. Because
cybervetting often involves acquiring information intended for, created by,
and/or aggregated by other people and technologies, workers often only learn
about and can monitor online information after the fact (Hogan, 2010). This
distancing is motivation for, and an effect of, cybervetting.
Thus, this study shifts attention from more episodic information exchange
and meaning-making processes (Dipboye, 2014) toward persistent develop-
ment and management of a relatively new phenomenon that we label digital
career capital, which builds on Inkson and Arthur’s (2001) notion of career
capital—the competencies, identities, motivations, and relationships provid-
ing career value. Drawing on our findings about how employers value appli-
cants using information presences and absences, digital career capital extends
earlier perspectives by emphasizing the importance of making career capital,
and thus employability, digitally and persistently visible. Rather than focus-
ing on visible employability during active job searches, workers are expected
to cultivate enduring shows of competence, professionalism, and connected-

ness across any sources employers might use. As part of this process, workers
are expected to fulfill growing expectations to view and enact work as one’s
singular passion (Berkelaar & Buzzanell, 2014).
Such expectations require sophisticated impression management skills as
people work to develop and manage the stable, desirable, schema-compatible
image (Goffman, 1959) employers desire during early sensemaking (Weick,
1995). Cybervetting highlights how individuals’ sensegiving and impression
management need to take into account physical and temporal distance as well
as information reordering and recontextualization. Even as research in online
impression management provides clues into how people leverage different
technological affordances to manage online impressions, such research often
focuses on particular platforms (e.g., Twitter™; Marwick & boyd, 2010) or
agreed-upon role contexts (e.g., supervisors and supervisees managing
impressions using organizational technologies; Erhardt & Gibbs, 2014).
Moreover, although research suggests that employees working at a distance
increase their use of impression management tactics (Barsness, Diekmann, &
Seidel, 2005), it is not clear whether and how impression management tactics
increase when individuals do not or cannot identify (and therefore do not
respond to) specific audiences and/or discrete (sets of) impression manage-
ment situations. Researchers do not fully understand how impression man-
agement works when people need to manage the multiple roles, context
collapse, and other-sourced information implicated in cybervetting, although
Marwick and boyd’s (2010) Twitter study provides early insights. Future
research should explore the ironic likelihood that awareness of cybervetting
will extend career-oriented impression management into online contexts (see
Lair et al., 2005) originally considered desirable because of their perceived
lack of career-related impression management.
These data suggest that employers’ cybervetting demands workers’ life-
long attention to and mindfulness about how digital artifacts might be per-
ceived and reassembled by employers. As employers engage in sensemaking
about information acquired or found missing through cybervetting, they
attempt to locate individuals across time, space, (role) and context (Maclean,
Harvey, & Chia, 2012) often appealing to agreed-upon assumptions of what
constitutes the professional or professionalism (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007).
Before becoming job candidates and paid workers, individuals are now
expected to prioritize workplace standards and expectations in online com-
munication. Such asymmetrical expansion of work interests is consistent
with empirical (Golden, 2013) and conceptual (Deetz, 1992) research on
work–life boundaries and arguments that organizational socialization may
happen earlier than often assumed (Berkelaar, 2013). By considering workers
as extensions of organizational brands (Edwards, 2005), employers who

cybervet validate all visible information as contextually relevant fodder for
employability sensemaking—including leisure activities and digital artifacts
from childhood. Given the implications for women, minority, and less techni-
cally savvy workers, the potential for differential career effects and need for
further research are substantial.
Practical Applications
At least two possible applications emerge from this analysis. First, employers
need to consider how cybervetting’s communicative and information conse-
quences shape effectiveness of personnel selection practices. Employers cur-
rently rely on intuitive, communication-as-transmission processes because of
time and resource constraints and the risks and pressures of failed selection
decisions—because “when you’re tired, cold, and hungry, any old map will
do” (Anacona, 2012, p. 6). Researchers could help employers adapt evidence-
based selection strategies to meet cybervetting’s temporal and habitual con-
veniences and employers’ needs for outcome accuracy, while also attending
to the practical ethics of cybervetting.
A second pragmatic implication involves quandaries between applicants’
need to simultaneously manage present and absent information online and
“positive” and “negative” digital artifacts that could affect employability.
Although people have habitually monitored their professional image
(Goffman, 1959), digital impression management and information curation
involve relatively sophisticated communication strategies. Making relevant,
audience-valued information visible demands attending to the Internet’s col-
lapsed contexts, myriad authors, temporal demands, artifact decontextualiza-
tion and recontextualization, and invisible audiences (boyd, 2007). However,
cybervetting offers few, if any, and mostly ambiguous, longer term cues for
workers (e.g., repeatedly not getting the job), with little ability to self-correct
as retrievable deletions might prompt questions about the “authentic” person
(Hogan, 2010; Marwick & boyd, 2010). Moreover, non-work goals, relation-
ships, and narratives (boyd, 2007) necessarily compete with professional
images workers want to create when seeking employment.
Conceptualizing cybervetting as a problem to be redressed through train-
ing that “fixes” people who do not fit the ideal worker image precludes chal-
lenging assumptions of what indicates competence; what skills, commitments,
and roles are (de)valued; what is useful and ethical from multiple standpoints;
and variations within and among social identity groups that might be prob-
lematically interpreted. To handle such quandaries, educators and researchers
should work with employers and workers to make visible potential strategic
alignments of organizational and individual interests while reconsidering the

ethical implications of centering the professional as anchor for digital identi-
ties. Future research can offer insights into ascertaining what, how, and why
certain online information might and should be curated in ways that address
organizational bottom lines and that befit individuals’ complex identities.
In conclusion, findings show that different technological affordances and
shifting information characteristics may affect organizational processes and
outcomes, and in turn individual lives and social norms, in various ways.
These findings highlight how present and absent information intersect with
employer expectations to inform contemporary employability evaluations,
and how (potential) workers now face the need for digital information cura-
tion even when they are not actively seeking a job.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was partially funded by a
Bilsland Strategic Initiatives grant sponsored by Purdue University.
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Author Biographies
Brenda L. Berkelaar, PhD, Purdue University, is an assistant professor of communi-
cation studies in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at
Austin. Her research centers on work and career, with a particular emphasis on the
ways new technologies shape how we understand and practice work and career.
Patrice M Buzzanell, PhD, Purdue University, is a professor of communication in
the Brian Lamb School of Communication (and professor of engineering education by
courtesy) at Purdue University. Her research centers on the everyday negotiations and
structures that produce and are produced by the intersections of organizational com-
munication, career, and gender.

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Brenda L. Berkelaar1 and Patrice M. Buzzanell2

1The University of Texas at Austin, USA

Employers consider personnel selection a central strategy for establishing

The Context and Characteristics of Cybervetting

The Information Context of Cybervetting

and brand (Edwards, 2005) amplify employer interest, encouraging employ-

The Communicative Characteristics of Cybervetting

Table 1. Comparing Cybervetting and Traditional Background Checks.

Information . . . Cybervetting Traditional background checks

Types • Age • Credit information

employment (e.g., résumés, cover letters, interviews; Lair, Sullivan, &

decisions involve other people, we deliberately sampled a diverse set of

To validate findings, we conducted member checks with participants from

Employers’ Reports of Cybervetting

Present or visible online information

Textual •• What, how, and amount •• To qualify or disqualify

Relational •• Connection to same people •• To assess and/or verify

Technological •• Ways people used •• To qualify candidates who

Absent or invisible online information

Evaluating the Presence of Different Types of Online

reported confirming whether the negative information was accurate or

Thus, employers expected applicants to be aware of cybervetting and employ-

Textual information. Employers did not exclusively focus on salacious vices

writing online.” Such information provides access to the “everyday interac-

As illustrated above, employers assess job candidates’ careers through their

In essence, textual information provided a way for employers to assess

You know, when there’s 4% unemployment, employers might not have as

unemployment, they do because there’s a whole bunch of other people waiting

Thus, the economic context—or perceptions thereof—moderates online

Technological information. More than half of these employers constructed a

constructions and evaluations of candidates’ competencies and character.

Positive evaluations of job candidates were amplified when community

Although the topic of cybervetting lends itself to discussions of privacy,

Evaluating the Absence of Expected Information

Unfortunately, these data also suggest that removing or hiding online

Thus, unsurprisingly, digital presence is necessary for people who want to be

organizational scenarios. For example, individuals interested in working for

to cultivate enduring shows of competence, professionalism, and connected-

as extensions of organizational brands (Edwards, 2005), employers who

alignments of organizational and individual interests while reconsidering the

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Berkelaar, B. L. (2014). Cybervetting, online information, and personnel

Edwards, M. R. (2005). Employer and employee branding: HR or PR? In S.

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