Past Social-Media Posts Upend Hiring
More companies are scouring job candidates’ online personas for racist and other red-flag comments. That hasn’t kept social-media trails from morphing into hiring minefields.
The New York Times has become the latest employer to grapple with a public furor after announcing last week it hired journalist Sarah Jeong as a technology writer for its editorial board. Soon after, tweets she had posted between 2013 and 2015 disparaging white people—in one instance, using the hashtag #cancelwhitepeople—resurfaced and a social-media outcry ensued.
Defending its hire, the Times said in a written statement that it knew about Ms. Jeong’s tweets before hiring her and that “she understands that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable at The Times.” On Twitter, Ms. Jeong said she regretted the posts, which she said had been aimed at online harassers, not a general audience.
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With job recruits’ social-media histories readily available, more employers are trying to head off or prepare for such controversies, especially with high-profile hires. In a 2017 survey of more than 2,300 hiring managers and human-resources executives by jobs website CareerBuilder, 70% said they screened candidates’ social-media histories—up from 60% the previous year. One-third said they had found discriminatory comments that caused them not to hire someone.
Yet social-media screening remains one the murkiest aspects of the hiring process, according to experts in employment law and human resources. Both too little and too much scouring present legal and reputational pitfalls, they say. And though many employers have firm policies on whether to test for drug use or conduct criminal-record checks, fewer have consistent guidelines on how they vet and assess prospective employees’ online histories.
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Whereas the Times said it had discussed Ms. Jeong’s social-media history with her during the hiring process, the newspaper said it hadn’t been aware of some old, inflammatory tweets posted by journalist and essayist Quinn Norton before hiring her to its editorial board in February. They included the use of racial slurs and referred to her friendship with a neo-Nazi. Hours after a social-media storm erupted over her hiring announcement, the Times and Ms. Norton said she would no longer join the company. After the episode with Ms. Norton, the Times stepped up its efforts to review the social-media histories of its hires, a person familiar with the matter said.
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“I’m more concerned about those issues being a problem if we didn’t look at it,” said Ms. Bischoff. In some states, she added, ignoring a public history of, say, racist tweets could legally expose an employer if that new hire, in turn, discriminated against minorities... A more common issue to come up in social-media screenings these days is highly politicized rants that risk alienating fellow employees or clients, Mr. Hanold said. “Employers tend to avoid that like the plague,” he said.
Some companies are turning to software companies such as Fama Technologies Inc., which uses an algorithm to sift through applicants’ or employees’ public social-media posts. So far this year, Fama says, it has screened more than 10 million pieces of online content for corporate clients. Of the people screened, 10% had content that raised flags for bigotry, racism or hate speech, while 14% had flags for potential misogyny or sexism.
“Companies are starting to wake up to the fact that this risk is real,” said Fama’s chief executive and co-founder, Ben Mones. “There isn’t a question like, ‘Are you racist?’ on a job application. Most people who are racist don’t think they’re racist.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-media-histories-upend-hiring-1533503800 (paid subscription)
= new reply since forum marked as read
and do not have to put up with all the new social media stuff.
Last time I interviewed, in the 90s I was proud of my Excel knowledge to convince them..
