Social Media Invades and Modernizes Employment Practices

Facebook now has more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, and chances are, most employment applicants are members of the ubiquitous social media site. LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media programs also have millions of members. For employers, these sites present a potential treasure trove of information on applicants, but mining this information for use in recruiting, hiring, firing and monitoring of employees is fraught with risk. Nonetheless, some studies show that 40% of employers search social media during the hiring process in order to weed out candidates before in-person interviews. While there are not currently any laws in the United States forbidding employers from gleaning information from social media ' whether during the hiring process or at any point in the employment relationship ' improper use can get them into trouble.