There are many benefits to conducting background screening via social media checks during the hiring process. These checks can tell you a great deal about a candidate – both good and bad – and can be very valuable in finding top talent. But how do you train your team on how to evaluate these valuable background checks? Have you established guidelines that your HR came can follow to use them to their best advantage?

How to Evaluate a Social Media Check

Social media checks from Triton are a thorough review of a candidate’s social media profiles. It identifies potential red flags that you can then use to inform your decision-making process. But there is also other information that you can use to influence your decision to hire (or not). One of the best ways to do so is to ask a specific set of questions.

1.  How would this candidate fit in with our culture? Is this person likely to be an asset or a detriment to company morale?

  • How a person conducts themselves online says a lot about them. A positive attitude and vibe can have a significant impact on workplace culture. In contrast, if a person shares a lot of memes about work or has complained about co-workers or management in the past, is that something you want to invite into your workplace? That type of behaviour nurtures negativity.

2.  Do their interests align with the job roles and responsibilities?

  • If a person is applying for a job in a specific industry, you may find evidence of previous experience on social media. For example, they are applying for a professional role, but their social media check flags substance and drug abuse – those interests would be consistent with a professional role.

3.  Are their views aligned with your company values?

  • Flags for hate speech, violent political and/or religious content, and sexually explicit content are all examples of what could surface on a social media check that may not reflect your company’s values.

4.  Could any of their past behaviour put our company at risk?

  • Social media checks will also flag potentially problematic behaviour that could indicate that the individual is a risk to co-workers, customers or even the public. Like the previous question and answer: hate speech, racist or sexist comments, bullying/harassing behaviour, violence, sexually explicit material, and illicit activities, like drugs, etc. are all flags that could suggest that an individual presents risk to your organization.

The presence of flags doesn’t mean it should be “game-over” for the candidate / employee, either. It is important to evaluate the flag, how recent it is, and what it actually was, and if clarity is needed, ask the individual about it.

By creating a guide for your team to understand how to evaluate a social media check, your HR team will be better positioned to use the background check properly. It will also create uniformity and process so that candidates are evaluated equally. Decide together what is most important to your company and you’ll be set for success from the start.

At Triton, we use top AI tools to thoroughly review all platforms to provide you with the most accurate social media checks. For more, visit www.tritoncanada.ca today.