Social media clout as part of employee screening?

Great blog post today by Steve Boese exploring the question of whether one day (soon?) we will begin measuring a candidate’s online presence and influence as a component about the individual.

It’s an interesting thought as more and more of employee screening is moving online and public domain tools are begin used for this purpose. I instinctively look at a candidate’s LinkedIn profile whenever I am considering them. If I can, I’ll also review their Facebook page and doing some Google searches.

So if someone is highly active and influential online, what does that say about them? It is a positive? Can it be a negative. To me, it just depends on the role. Certainly, if I am hiring a sales or marketing candidate, this will matter … A LOT. If I need someone to promote the online presence of Chequed.com, I want to know that they know how its done effectively and appropriately.This seems fairly obvious, but what about if I am hiring an accountant or a developer?

In roles where building and maintaining an online presence is not in the regular course of business, I still want to know what they know. If I can identify that someone is influential in their online community and can engage, it tells me about their willingness to develop their skills and communicate.

In addition, there is another major consideration with regard to measuring online influence (or clout) in the hiring process, which is the candidate experience. The reality is that most companies have a pretty abysmal online recruitment experience which compromises their brand. We use common tools like HootSuite to listen to what’s being said about our client’s recruitment brand. Candidate’s talk often about those experience, both good and bad. A constant stream of bad posts can really effect the willingness of a strong candidate to begin your process. If you’re not listening to those conversations, start.

So, does measuring online influence matter in the employee screening process? I think it does as a secondary measure. Certainly, the experience, pre-employment testing results, interviews and reference checking matter more, but it is an interesting think to begin to monitor for a corporate HR department intent on improvement.