This paper examines employers' use of social media for recruitment and hiring. It discusses how employers are increasingly using sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to find potential candidates in a cost-effective way. However, using social media profiles can introduce ethical issues if employers base decisions on protected attributes or non-job related information. While there are no laws specifically regarding social media and hiring, discrimination claims could arise. The paper concludes that social media can be a useful addition to traditional recruiting, but should not replace in-person evaluations and résumés. Employers must take care not to violate privacy or allow bias in social media-informed decisions.

1. 1BU491 – Final Paper
BU 491 Final Paper
Amanda Jackson
Herzing University

2. 2BU491 – Final Paper
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to look at the new popularity of employers using
social media as a way to recruit and select employees that they will hire. Specifically
this research will look into the legality and ethicalness of using social media to make
decisions directly relating to recruitment and hiring practices of employers.
If used correctly social media can be a great way for potential employees and
employers to find each other. There is so much information out there about people who
use social media regularly. There is a line we need to draw when it comes to what
information we should use to determine if an applicant should be hired or not. There are
laws specifically regarding employment and social media once an employee actually
works for a company but there are no laws on the books about hiring practices and
social media.
This research delved into the statistics of who uses social media and how many
employers use social media and what the employers are using the social media for and
how they apply that information when it comes to recruiting and selection in the hiring
process.
This is a compilation of the many studies that have been done on this topic and
the consensus of what those studies have found. The research found that more young
people than older people use social media so if you only use social media for recruiting
and hiring you could be shutting the door on older people and that could lead to age
discrimination. Less Hispanic people use LinkedIn which could close the door on a
whole demographic of people if a company were to only use LinkedIn.

3. 3BU491 – Final Paper
The findings of this research are that it is important to incorporate social media
into your recruiting and selection processes but that it is in no way taking over more
traditional recruiting and selection processes. It adds one more way for employers to vet
potential candidates but should not be the only way. Another important point is that
even though there are no laws on the books yet it is important to make sure you have
safeguards in place in order to not violate someone’s rights of privacy or consciously or
unconsciously cause bias in your hiring decisions based off something that is found in
their social media profile.
Hypothesis
The hypothesis is that LinkedIn is the best social media source for employers to
use in recruiting and selection processes because it is specifically for professional
networking. This paper also hypothesizes that Facebook is the worst source of social
media for selection processes but it does work well and could be used for recruiting.
From the research the findings of this paper are that it is now apparent that it is
not justifiable to use just one source of social media. And that social media is in no way
taking over traditional methods for recruiting or selection. Social media is a great new
addition to traditional methods and one day will be considered traditional when some
other new method is discovered.
Literature Review
Some specific problems that can be seen by using Facebook according to Grasz
(2014) is that employers could see where someone has talked badly about a previous
employer or a family member or friend, they could also see where they were

4. 4BU491 – Final Paper
participating in criminal activity, they could see inappropriate pictures, they could see
discriminatory comments.
According to Brown and Vaughn (2011) some current risks that come with using
social media for selection processes include invasion of privacy, lack of clearly
identifiable theoretical constructs used in the screening process, and the absence of
data to support that the information used in screening is job relevant, the variability in
type and amount of information publicly available across an applicant pool prevents a
completely standardized collection of predictor information across all applicants. Brown
also mentions the fact that applicant’s information can be viewed differently depending
on the perception of who is looking at it and that applicants themselves would self-
monitor and just not post things that make them look bad.
Brown discusses that using alcohol or drug pictures or posts on an applicant’s
Facebook page as a reason to reject them could be considered a violation in
accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA 1990). The ADA says that a
qualified person with a disability is one whom can perform the essential functions of the
job with or without reasonable accommodation. Alcoholism (or alcohol dependence) is
currently covered under the ADAAA; however, an employer may deny employment to
an applicant whose use of alcohol adversely affects job performance or conduct (EEOC
2008).
Brown brings up a great point when she mentions the study by Bertrand and
Mullainathan (2004) where studies showed that Caucasian sounding names were 50%
more likely to receive a callback for an interview and Brown uses that point to show that

5. 5BU491 – Final Paper
if people have biases about names when they cannot see the person how much more
likely are they to have bias about something they come across on a social media
profile?
Brown and Vaughn tells us that as of their writing in 2011 employers were not
required to disclose exactly what they found that caused them to reject the candidate
and that could therefore lead to discrimination or allow discrimination on the part of
hiring managers because an online search of an applicant could disclose protected
information that an employer should not know about a candidate when making a hiring
decision.
Brown and Vaughn also point out that there is other information that is not
currently protected by the federal government that could be used discriminate against a
candidate like their appearance, smoking habits and sexual orientation.
Bentley (2013) mentions that employers will see age, race, gender, and other things
that should not be used when making a hiring decision. Bentley also talks about
employers requiring candidates or employees to disclose their social media passwords
and likens it to asking for a key to their home and searching through their personal
belongings.
Hazelton and Terhort (2015) like Bentley and Brown mention the protected
information that employers will have access to if they view social media profiles.
Hazelton and Terhort mention that candidates can harm themselves by what they post
to their social media and tells us that there is no law preventing employers from looking
at social media profiles when making hiring decisions.

6. 6BU491 – Final Paper
Hazelton and Terhort bring up a good point about LinkedIn, even though it is a
professional networking site, employers could still get in trouble for discrimination.
Hazelton and Terhort cite Elefant (2011) and bring up the fact that only 5% of LinkedIn
users are African-American and only 2% of LinkedIn users are Hispanic. This could lead
to limiting job openings to these populations for employers who rely too heavily on
LinkedIn.
According to Duggan and Smith (2013) 76% of Facebook users are black, 73%
of Facebook users are Hispanic and 71% of Facebook users are white. Which would
suggest for recruiting Facebook would be a good place to get the word out about job
openings in an organization. Duggan and Smith said that as of this survey in 2013
which is newer than the previously cited survey by Elefant shows that 30% of LinkedIn
users are black, 22% of LinkedIn users are white and 13% of LinkedIn users are
Hispanic. The numbers have definitely increased in two years and will continue to
increase as more people start using LinkedIn for professional networking. According to
this same survey Twitter users are as follows 29% black, 16% white, and 16% Hispanic.
In the article by Grasz (2014) on Careerbuilder employers use social networking
sites to look at some positive things as well, this includes to see if an applicant is a good
fit with the company’s culture; right fit of applicants background information with their
professional qualifications; a professional image as represented on the profile; relevant
interests; excellent communication skills; praise and awards; good references;
interaction with employers’ social media accounts; and number of followers or
subscribers.

7. 7BU491 – Final Paper
In the study by Sameen and Cornelius (2015) she looks at which social media
sites employers use the most, LinkedIn 79.8%, Facebook 35.9% and Twitter 14.8%. In
the same study by Sameen and Cornelius they looked into exactly when in the hiring
process employers look at social media profiles and found that 39.84% of respondents
marked “after receiving initial application”, and 13.28% said they use social media after
initial conversation with prospective employee. Sameen and Cornelius noted that 43.8%
of the respondents said that they do not make final hiring decisions based on what they
see on social media profiles. Sameen and Cornelius go on to show that of those
respondents who did make final decisions based on candidate profiles (31.3%)
considered positive impression of the personality in match with organizational fit
(33.6%), profile supporting professional qualification (32.0%), and solid communication
skills (21.1%) as primary factors that influenced the hiring decision. Also Sameen and
Cornelius found that most of the professionals do not reject candidates (59.4%) solely
on what they see on social media profiles. Sameen and Cornelius noted that
professionals who did reject candidates (16.4%) based on what they saw on social
media revealed communication skills, lies about qualifications (21.1%), sharing of
confidential information of the previous employer (17.2%), and posting of negative
comments about previous employer (16.4%) the factors that influenced their decision to
reject candidates.
In the same study Sameen and Cornelius asked respondents about the benefits
they saw from using social media in the hiring process and they responded that cost
effectiveness (64.1%) and timeliness (61.2%) as major reasons to use social media in
the hiring process.

8. 8BU491 – Final Paper
How employers use social media
Employers are more commonly using social media as a way to recruit and select
potential candidates for their companies. Employers can effectively recruit while
reducing the costs of traditional ways of recruiting. It used to be that employers had to
pay to put adds out and even pay to put listings on job sites. It is so much cheaper to
post job listings on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
According to Dery, Tansley, and Hafermalz (2014), “Social media must not be
seen as automated versions of traditional organisational practices. Alternative forums
should be recognised, and their impact and value understood, as part of the recruitment
process”. (Dery, Tansley, and Hafermalz)
Dery, Tansely, and Hafermalz were discussing the addition of social media
recruitment process to the traditional processes that HR uses. They discussed how
some employers were using social media to target graduate students and keep them
involved in the recruitment, selection and onboarding processes until it was time for
them to actually be hired because they started recruiting students who still had one to
two years left in their courses.
According to LinkedIn they are one of the most commonly used social media
sites by employers because it is the largest professional online network out there with
over 400 million users and 39 million of those are students. Most users of LinkedIn are
aware that potential employers will be looking at their LinkedIn profile. Facebook on the
other hand according to Sedghi (2014) as of February 2014 has a record 1.23 billion
regular monthly users. So there is no wonder why employers want to search the internet

9. 9BU491 – Final Paper
to get information on potential employees. They want to make sure that their potential
hire is a good fit for their company culture, they can use it to ensure that their resume
matches their online profiles, and to see if the candidate has good communication skills.
How potential candidates use social media
Potential candidates and those in the job market are using social media to find
available positions in companies and to even judge the company based on their online
presence. Candidates who come in to an interview with a potential employer who have
researched the company and know some of the recent things that are going on look
much better to the employer because they show that they are willing to do their
homework. It makes the candidate seem informed and allows them to communicate
better what they can bring to the table. Many employers are recruiting on Facebook
pages and LinkedIn as a way to get in touch with the group of potential candidates that
they need students and recently graduated people who could really fit into the company
culture.
Ethical considerations of recruiting through social media
Although there is not much empirical evidence as far as research about the
implication of using social media in the recruiting and selection process there are many
ethical considerations that need to be made. There are certain things that an employer
is not supposed to know or want to know to prevent personal biases in the hiring
process. Things like sex, gender, race and ethnicity, religious affiliation and things like
this that cannot be used to discriminate against someone are commonly found when
searching online social media profiles and thus could be used accidentally by someone

10. 10BU491 – Final Paper
who is making the selection and hiring decisions. Is the person in charge of making
decisions being fair across the board to every potential candidate because if you are
only checking the social media profiles of some and not all you are also being
discriminatory? Does the person in charge of making the decisions about hiring use
information found on the potential candidate’s online profile to reject them even though
the particular item that they found to be unlikeable has nothing to do with whether or not
the candidate can do the job? What about finding out that the person does drugs or
drinks alcohol, if the person in charge of hiring uses this against them it can also be
discrimination because drug addiction is listed under disabilities and we cannot
discriminate against people with disabilities.
According to Brown and Vaughn (2011) it is difficult to make sure the playing field
is even because the amount of information available for each candidate will be different.
There needs to be some uniform way of gauging the information used when making
hiring decisions.
Legality of recruiting and selection through social media
As of today, no known cases of litigation have been tried based on recruiting and
selection practices. There are cases that have to do with employment law and social
media but they all come from employees not candidates and potential employees. A
summary of those known cases are as follows:
One issue comes from companies trying to limit what an employee can say on
social media about their employer. The National Labor Relations Board has the National
Labor Relations Act which prohibits employers from taking action against employees

11. 11BU491 – Final Paper
who try to join together in a union for example, also there is free speech to contend with
because people should be able to say how they feel or what they think about something
without having to worry about the repercussions. This brings up another point which is
privacy and the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act can be
violated if an employer accesses an employee’s social media account by false
pretenses or by putting an employee under duress.
Employee discipline for social media use is another tricky scenario where
employers can make a social media policy and not allow employees to use social media
while on the clock but it becomes more difficult to discipline an employee for something
they put on social media while they were not at work.
Morgan and Davis (2013) tell us that concerted activity is,
“Concerted activity encompasses a variety of actions, such as challenging
an employer’s pay practices, protesting unsafe working conditions, and
complaining about work schedules. Not all employee complaints are protected
concerted activity, however; to qualify as concerted activity, the conduct must be
undertaken ‘for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or
protection’. In other words, complaints made solely on behalf of an individual
employee are not protected; rather, the complaints must be made on behalf of
other employees or at least made with the object of inducing or preparing for
group action.”

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This is mentioned because under the National Labor Relations Act an employee
can post on social media and be protected if it is considered concerted activity but they
are not protected if it is not concerted activity.
Due to the scope of this paper being on recruitment and selection practices it will
not go into too much detail regarding the employment aspect of social media issues. If
readers of this paper are interested in the cases that involve employment law and social
media some of the relevant cases so far are as follows:
Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc., 717 F. Supp. 2d 965, 982 (C.D. Cal. 2010)
Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., 302 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2002)
Pietrylo v. Hillstone Rest. Grp., CIV.065754(FSH), 2009 WL 3128420 (D.N.J. Sept. 25,
2009)
Gates v. Wheeler, No. A09-2355, 2010 Minn. App. Unpub. LEXIS 1136 (Minn. Ct. App.
Nov. 23, 2010)
Van Alstyne v. Elec. Scriptorium Ltd., 560 F.3d 199 (4th Cir. 2009)
Ehling v. Monmouth-Ocean Hosp. Service Corp., 872 F. Supp. 2d 369 (D.N.J. 2012)
Pietrylo v. Hillstone Rest. Grp., No. CIV.06-5754(FSH), 2009 WL 3128420 (D.N.J. Sept.
25, 2009)
Sumien v. Careflite, No. 02-12-00039-CV, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 5331 (July 5, 2012)
Costco Wholesale Club, NLRB No. 34-CA-012421 (Sept. 7, 2012)

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EchoStar Techs, LLC, NLRB No. 27-CA-066726 (Sept. 20, 2012)
Karl Knauz Motors Inc., 358 N.L.R.B. No. 164 (Sept. 28, 2012)
Chapman v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Review, 20 A.3d 603 (Pa. Commw. 2011)
In summation of this section of this paper, there are no known litigation cases as
of today that specifically involve recruitment and selection. This section did look at some
of the cases that involve employment law and social media to give readers an idea of
what kinds of things end up in litigation from this side of the employer employee
relationship. This list is not an exhaustive list but does show cases in which social
media policies were overturned by courts because they were unconstitutional or went
against an employee’s rights. Some of the cases listed above show the importance of
the National Labor Relations Act and the Stored Communications Act.
One issue that could become a legal issue is the fact that if you use social media
as way to investigate a potential employee it could violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act
and you would have to disclose that information to the applicant just like if you check
their credit. In that case you have to notify the person that you checked their credit and
what it was on the credit report that was viewed negatively.
Pros and Cons of using social media in hiring decisions
The pros of using social media in hiring decisions including recruitment include
having one more way to investigate or look into potential employees. There are
background checks and credit checks and reference checks and now social media

14. 14BU491 – Final Paper
checks. It gives an employer one more way to look into the life of a potential employee
to help determine if they would make a good fit with the company.
When it comes to recruiting it is much cheaper than traditional ways of recruiting
especially Facebook because it is free. Even twitter is a great way for a company to let
people know they are hiring for a specific position. LinkedIn costs something but
because it is a professional networking site you have an opportunity to really get the
word out to people who are looking and have something to bring to the table.
Another positive thing for social media and recruiting is the fact that so many
people are on social media these days that it only takes a second to reach a maximum
number of people. It increases the amount of applicants that a company has to choose
from thus increasing the chances of finding the right person for the job.
Some cons of recruiting through social media is that you have to ensure you are
going through more than one channel of social media in order to not cause a disparate
impact against any particular group especially a group that is protected.
Although there is no litigation about recruitment and selection practices when it
comes to social media we still have to be very careful to not cause anything that could
be seen as discrimination or disparate treatment or disparate impact. There is evidence
of discriminatory practices in hiring in the past and these discriminatory practices could
easily be transferred to social media recruiting and selection processes.
Another pitfall to consider is to not allow hiring managers to see personal
information on social media that could cause bias in their decision. Looking at photos of

15. 15BU491 – Final Paper
the applicant drinking at a party is not helpful when it comes to hiring because it has
nothing to do with the job and could cause bias on the part of the hiring manager.
Future of social media by employers and candidates
Use of social media by employers and candidates is not going anywhere any
time soon. There are things that need to be implemented by both sides to ensure
fairness and a higher percentage of positive employee/employer matchups.
In the case of employers they really need to be careful and to ensure that they
are not allowing any biases to affect their decisions when it comes to hiring. Employers
need to make sure they have their business on social media not just for recruitment and
selection processes but also to stay in touch with customers and stakeholders. Any
company that is not online in more than once way is missing out on what could be their
next potential customer or employee. So many people are online and on social media
now that staying in touch with stakeholders that way is so much more cost efficient that
sending out mail even email which will get thrown out as junk mail more often than not.
When it comes to recruiting social media is one of the fastest new ways to get
the word out that you are hiring. Even if you are not reaching people specifically that
you want to target those people might know someone who knows someone and in a few
clicks the message is in the right hands.
The future of social media for candidates is a little different. It is important that
candidates make sure their profile is as professional as it can get. It should not be
squeaky clean like you have something to hide but it should show that you are
professional and well-rounded that you can have fun as well. Even though we tell hiring

16. 16BU491 – Final Paper
managers not to be biased some of that is just natural human behavior and if you don’t
want to fall victim to that as a potential employee of a company and lose out on a job
clean up your profile so that what they will see is professional. From the article by Grasz
we can see that employers make decisions not to hire people based on things like they
talked about a previous employer, they talked about a family member, they had
unprofessional pictures on their profile and anything else that the person looking at your
profile that day may not like. Candidates should ensure that there is no discriminatory
language or remarks on their social media profile especially Facebook and Twitter and
although not as common and not mentioned before in this paper YouTube. YouTube is
another example of a social media platform where people may have posted videos that
could be found when their name is searched online. This is one of those things that
once it is out there it is out there and even if you delete it someone may still have it
somewhere to be posted online without your permission. Candidates that plan to look
for a job any time in the next few years would be wise to ensure that they don’t post
anything to the internet that they wouldn’t want someone to see at a later time.
One other thing that could be seen in the near future because so many laws are
going on the books in so many states about employment and social media we could see
social media investigation linked with the Fair Credit Reporting Act because so many
employers admit to using social media as a way of checking out potential employees.
Summary and Conclusion

17. 17BU491 – Final Paper
In conclusion, social media is here to stay and there are so many good things
that come from social media. It is faster. It is cheaper. It reaches so many people. It is a
way for employers and potential employees to find each other in a way that didn’t exist
before.
There are some pitfalls that employers need to watch out for and go out of their
way to prevent. Even though there is no current litigation about this the more social
media is used for researching applicants the more opportunity there will be to have
something happen that will cause litigation. You do not want that to be at your company.
Whether there is a law on the books about it or not use ethical judgement to prevent it.
Some companies are having third party companies research candidates online
and through social media which is a good thing because that way the person doing the
actual hiring did not see any pictures or other item that could cause them to be biased
about the person and the third party company would only report job related information
to the hiring manager. This is one of the best ways to do it so that there is no potential
for bias. Another thing would be to have one employee in the HR department check out
potential employees and only report what is relevant to the hiring manager for them to
make the decision.
Overall, as long as a company designs and implements a social media policy that
will cover these things they can prevent future discrimination and save the company a
lot of money and stress.
At the beginning of this research it was thought that LinkedIn was the best social
media network for recruiting because it is a professional network, however, Duggan and

18. 18BU491 – Final Paper
Smith’s research shows that LinkedIn’s demographics as of a 2014 survey are 30%
black, 22% white, and only 13% Hispanic. This can only lead us to one conclusion. If
you used LinkedIn only it would cause disparate impact on the Hispanic population
because it would decrease the amount of Hispanic people who had an opportunity to try
for the specific positions listed on LinkedIn. Facebook’s demographics as of 2014 are
76% black, 73% Hispanic and 71% white. This is a much more favorable option for
recruiting because it reaches more people and a closer percentage of each
demographic.
Based on the research it is now apparent that it is not justifiable to use just one
source of social media. And that social media is in no way taking over traditional
methods for recruiting or selection. Social media is a great new addition to traditional
methods and one day will be considered traditional when some other new method is
discovered. Facebook still does not seem to be a place where you need to look in order
to make a hiring decision about a person because more Facebook users are using it for
personal and not professional reasons. LinkedIn is used for professional reasons but
not everyone is on LinkedIn however the number of users goes up every year.
When it comes to using social media to vet potential employees it is better to be
safe than sorry and make sure someone other than the hiring manager is looking at
profiles so the person making the decision can’t possibly be biased. Another way to
protect the company is to document and keep great records of how and what you use
from social media checks and decisions that are made. Screen shots from social media
accounts that are visible to potential employers are printed off and put in the file of the
potential applicant to keep on file for the allotted amount of time as required by law.

19. 19BU491 – Final Paper
Social media is a great thing to use but should not be the only thing you use.
When recruiting social media should be but one way to get the word out while still using
other traditional methods and while making selection decisions social media again
should only be one method of many used for finding the right employee for the right
position.

20. 20BU491 – Final Paper
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21. 21BU491 – Final Paper
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