Question: What do you advise regarding screening social media accounts during the hiring process?
Answer: It is strongly recommend against reviewing a candidate’s social media accounts during the interview process. By doing so, you could be exposed to information about the protected classes to which your candidate belongs. For instance, if you went to their Facebook page, you might discover their race, age, or religion. If your ultimate hiring decision was challenged, you would need to prove that those characteristics were not a factor in your decision.
It is recommended that basing hiring decisions only on the information you obtain through the application, resume, interviews, and reference checks. The goal of the application and interview process is to find the most qualified candidate for the position you’re trying to fill. You shouldn’t need to get into the private lives of candidates to make that determination, and the risk of doing so makes it inadvisable in any case.
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