How Facebook job boards could be an HR nightmare.



Contributing Writer
Photo: Smurfy Workers Credit: Mark Puplava


In my career I’ve had the opportunity to hire quite a few great people, and the one thing that I can say for certain about the hiring process is that it takes a lot of time.  Any kind of filter be it background checks, personality tests or interview gauntlets are a drain on resources.   So when it was reported this weekend that Facebook is going to develop a job board to compete with LinkedIn my immediate reaction was, “wow, THAT could be a disaster.”

Facebook could be entering the job search business for two reasons: #1 to drive traffic to the site (which is pretty unlikely given that they are well-off in this area) or #2 to sell employers access to some cohort of the prospect’s personal information.  Given all of Facebook’s desperate post-IPO recent monetization efforts this seems most likely.  There’s no benefit to a recruiter to post a job on Facebook if there isn’t an organic vetting mechanism, and Facebook has shown increasing willingness to leverage data for dollars.

Here’s the problem: Facebook has more personal information about people than any data repository in the world save Google.  Where LinkedIn presents a very polished, professional view (most of the time) of any candidate, Facebook houses a raw, unrefined snapshot.  Conventional wisdom is that a person who posts or says disparaging things about their job could become likewise negative about a new job.  Facebook is where is that discontent is most likely to be articulated online.  Nevermind the fact that quite a few businesses treat their employees shabbily – if you’ve ever said anything negative you could be a non-viable candidate for a job.  Photos, posts from friends, post timestamps within in the work day – the list of “legitimate” discriminators is vast.

And what about illegal discriminators?  Ask about religion, age, marital status, children, politics, et cetera in a job interview and a business could face potential lawsuits – but Facebook has all of that and more.   And they could conceivably have your purchase history from Amazon (and bevy of other online retailers) and your search history if you connect your social profile to Bing.

Of course Facebook won’t give employers access to all of the information that they have, but in all likelihood they’ll make employers privy to some of that data.  The question in human resources will be how do you sort through that personal information and will traditional discriminators still apply when there is a confluence of subjective data to scrutinize?  And will there be legal issues for employers that use Facebook to vet candidates?

With one company, I  spent five months hiring for an open position.  In that time, I found a litany of qualified people that I really would have enjoyed working with (including a PhD candidate).  The reason I couldn’t hire any of them was that they had to fit a personality profile in order for me to extend an offer.  I ended up hiring a young woman with a opiate addiction who lied about her physical capability to do the job.  But she had a great personality (test).

I suspect job boards and candidate vetting will continue to be the bread and butter of LinkedIn, but there is probably a cohort of companies that will leverage Facebook’s database to vet candidates for open positions.  The one common denominator for those companies will probably be that you wouldn’t want to work for them.

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

Jim Dougherty

@jimdougherty

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

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  • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn | Wonder of Tech

    Hi Jim, I wonder how many companies will use a “belt and suspenders” approach by posting job openings on both LinkedIn and Facebook? As a potential employer, wouldn’t you want to learn about a potential employee’s Facebook posting? Could you perhaps have avoided the opiate addicted candidate that way?

    Opening up job boards on Facebook does open up a lot of privacy issues. By applying for a job, does that mean a candidate has to reveal his/her Timeline to the employer?

    This should be a fascinating expansion of Facebook. You’re wise to approach it with caution.

  • http://www.businessesgrow.com/blog Mark W. Schaefer

    Every move FB makes is to drive two things: Time on site and personal data collected. So this strategy does make sense.

    FB will not give personal information they collect from the site to potential employers. That would immediately kill their company and bring about so many law suits that it would make your head spin.

    Another possible motive is that they want to buy LinkedIn and sending are message.

  • http://leaderswest.com Jim Dougherty

    Hi Mark, thanks so much for reading and commenting – I always appreciate you taking the time. I would think from a common sense standpoint you’re right, but following the LinkedIn thought to conclusion – a good portion of their revenue is derived from giving you access to personal information. With the courts and legislators reticent to do anything to employers who ask candidates for their Facebook passwords I wonder how illegal it would be if Facebook simply changed their terms of service. I also think that with the license they’ve already taken, Facebook probably wouldn’t die or even have legal concerns to share personal information with third parties if it served their purposes. This is the company that denied using tracking cookies, admitted it, got sued and called to Congress then just announced that they were doing the same thing (give or take) via Facebook Connect.

    I completely agree with you about the benefit of time-on-site and don’t know why I dismissed that. I know their advertising isn’t as honed as they’d like it, but even ineffective advertising benefits from more eyeballs looking at it! I’m so grateful for you taking the time to comment.

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