The Legal Ramifications of Using Social Media Sites for Recruiting and Staffing

Abstract

This research intends to explore the legal ramifications of using social media sites for recruiting and staffing. Social media sites can be an efficient and cost-effective source of staffing and recruiting people, heading towards shorter hiring times and access to a broader range of applicants. Current study recommends that over half of the U.S. jobseekers employ social media sites in their quest for jobs and a growing count of employers are seeking advantage of this increasing trend by supplementing and adapting conventional recruitment procedures with social media sites. Nevertheless, there are several prospective consequences and legal ramifications for candidates utilizing social media sites in recruitment will be necessary to capitalize prospects and reduce hazard. Social media is massive. Through the completion of 2011, 37.4 million adults were utilizing Facebook frequently, 32.1 million were surfing YouTube, 15.5 million were using Twitter, 7.9 million were using LinkedIn and 6.7 million were using Flickr, and these are just figures about the adults (Ellison, 2007).

ABSTRACTII

INTRODUCTION1

DISCUSSION2

History about the Legitimacy of Employer's Information-Collecting Methods2

Social Networking Sites4

Prospective Legal Concerns Emerging from Employer Examination of Candidate's Social Networking Profiles5

Incursion of Confidentiality5

Prejudice6

Fair Credit Reporting Act8

Violation of Terms of Service9

Denigration9

CONCLUSION10

REFERENCES11

The Legal Ramifications of Using Social Media Sites for Recruiting and Staffing

Introduction

Social networking sites, such as, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace, have gained growing popularity in precedent few years, with users revealing more and more confidential data on them (Lusted, 2011). These websites permit users to place and post a range of diverse data, entailing journal articles, photographs, personal interests, and innumerable of other private data. Whilst a number of users post childlike information, like, favorite movies, or their favorite bands, others entail more obscene listings, like, “I enjoy sex, I am a pothead and proud of it, and I obscured a hooker in the woods behind Sandburg Halls.” Prospective job applicants and fresh graduates may consider this information as a comic story to be sight merely by their associates. Nonetheless, potential employers are turning out to be growingly attentive of these websites and captivating benefit of the huge data accessible to help them in their recruiting decisions.

Though employers have started employing social media sites to facilitate with recruiting decisions, the prospective legal ramifications of such a practice are vague, to articulate the least. Until now, no case has been presented merely because of use of the social media sites. Nevertheless, the growing recognition such networking sites brings with it the prospective for several legal issues to emerge in this “rising field of law”, strengthening the opportunity such a case may emerge in the upcoming years (Correa, et.al, 2010).

Discussion

History about the Legitimacy of Employer's Information-Collecting Methods

During the precedent few years, in an attempt to enhance the productivity of their human resources and reduce their prospective liability, employers have initiated collecting a growing quantity of data about candidates through several innovative means. In history, employer's information-collecting methods have entailed questionnaires, written applications, references (former employment references and personal references), interviews, credit checks, ...