While pre-employment background screening is a regular practice, social media background checks are still a controversial topic. While about 51 percent of employers who research job candidates on social media find something that caused them not to hire an individual, there are times, when a company caught checking a candidate’s social media can get in legal trouble over hiring discrimination.

At Barada Associates, we can help you avoid legal pitfalls while still conducting a thorough social media background check so you hire the right high-profile candidate for the job.

Our social media screening is a part of our comprehensive background check services that give you insight into your existing employee base and new applicants. We’re the top choice for background screening in the country thanks to our reputation for timely and accurate results.

Contact Barada Associates today for your free consultation.

Social media is now a part of our daily lives. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and even social media platforms like LinkedIn, are how we shop, stay connected, make money, and so much more. So it makes sense that your company would want to look at a candidate’s social media accounts before making a final hiring decision. Unfortunately, you open yourself and your company up to some pretty major legal risks when you do so.

Some states even have laws that prohibit adverse action based on off-duty conduct, conduct which is often displayed on a candidate’s social media pages. Other times, when conducting a social media search during the hiring process, you may view social media posts that display a candidate’s legally protected characteristics.

While you may choose not to hire somewhere for a legitimate reason found on their social media, they could sue for discrimination based on evidence that you saw their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected information on their social media as well and based your decision on that instead.

Overall, it’s an extremely complicated issue. That’s why it’s critical to work with experienced professionals like the team at Barada Associates. We believe that you deserve a full picture of your potential new hires and their qualifications, including their culture and values as displayed on social media.

When you choose us for your social media background screening needs, you can make informed hiring decisions while also having the peace of mind that you and your team are protected from legal risks.

The advantages of social media screening from Barada Associates are vast. From ensuring the quality of candidates to expediting your hiring process, our social media searches can revolution your pre-employment screening process and reveal both positive and negative information about your job candidates.

A recent survey from Career Builder found that 33 percent of employers that search a candidate’s social media profiles found information that made them more likely to hire them. Another 23% of employers say the information they found through a social media search led to the direct hiring of a candidate.

Common benefits of screening candidate’s social media include:

Matching Company Culture

Whether you’re viewing posts, videos, or pictures, a person’s social media content reveals a lot about their life, family, personal values, and so much more. By receiving information from their accounts from our team, you can see if a candidate would be the right fit for the culture of your company and have the values to be an active, productive team member.

Identifying Inappropriate Behavior

Most individuals in the workforce are aware of the unspoken code of conduct that drives professional settings. Unfortunately, there are times when other unsavory behavior is exhibited in the workplace that can damage the operations and reputation of your company.

While a candidate might not show any signs of this behavior in the hiring process, it could be present on their social media. A social media screening can identify if a candidate posts hateful, sexist, homophobic, racist, or other inappropriate words or behaviors that are a red flag for their future workplace conduct.

Catching Inconsistencies

You want to see the good in everyone – we all do! It’s human nature. Sadly, there are many times when a candidate will falsify or place misleading information on their resume and application. While Barada offers in-depth background screening and reference reports to identify any falsities or unqualified candidates, our social media background checks can also help catch discrepancies in a candidate’s resume.

For example, maybe they list different education qualifications on their Facebook profile than on their resume.

At Barada Associates, we’re committed to protecting your company from unqualified, dishonest candidates from every angle. When it comes to social media background checks, we believe they can be a powerful tool in making the best hiring decision possible.

For our social media screenings, we use a three-tiered approach to reveal a candidate’s global, local, and social media footprint. We conduct Key Hire Research (KHR) by scanning all of a candidate’s social media profiles for relevant information.

As a third-party source in your hiring process, we can help protect you from the legal risks of social media checks. When we pass along the relevant information from the screening, we won’t include a candidate’s protected information that could be used to sue your hiring managers and organization for discrimination.

Almost every person on the planet has a digital presence. When it comes to new hires, you aren’t getting the full picture of their values, qualifications, or behaviors until you’ve seen their social media profiles. At Barada Associates, we offer top-notch third-party social media background checks and research as part of our expert pre-employment background screening services.

For more than 40 years, we’ve protected our clients from unqualified candidates, dishonest employees, and legal threats with our highly accurate results and timely process.

Contact Barada Associates today to learn more about social media background checks for your company.