Social Media
Background Checks

Identify unwanted behavior before inviting someone into your workplace

  • COMPREHENSIVE SCREENING by licensed investigators, not computers
  • EFFICIENT RESULTS so your hiring process isn't delayed
  • ONGOING SUPPORT to help you navigate compliance
  • NEXT GENERATION VETTING to bring attention to what matters most
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In 2020 we saw a tremendous increase in the use of social media, and workplace behavior and attitude shift around topics such COVID-19, racial justice, and the US election fueled the conversation.  In our reports, we highlight how these topics shifted across industries in 2020 so that you can augment and improve your own screening program. Here's what you need to know about doing a social media screening to pick the right workers for your company.

What Is Social Media Screening?

Social media screening is the practice of looking at the social media pages of prospective employees. Typically, the purpose of the screening is to determine whether or not an applicant's exhibited behavior and attitude align with your workplace and culture based on their posts and online interactions. These screenings typically look at the profiles of employees on major social media websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

What Shows Up in a Social Media Screening?

Our investigations have flagged hundreds of instances of misogyny, bigotry, racism, violence, and criminal behavior in publicly available online content across thousands of online mediums.

A complete look at a candidate's social media presence, in under 72 hours.

See an example report here. (Warning: this is a real report that has been anonymized for sharing. It contains explicit content.)
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A person's digital footprint provides a wealth of information regarding their character—info you can use to hire better employees who are the right fit for your organization.  While there are many things that you can potentially learn, these are some of the most common pieces of information that you’ll find:

  • Sexually Explicit, Misogyny and Racism
  • Toxic Behavior and Excessive Partying
  • Extremism groups 
  • Information about employee dishonesty

Can You Do a Social Media Screening on a Worker You’ve Previously Hired?

With proper consent from your applicant, a social media screening can help you uncover unknown behaviors and attitudes that are detrimental to your workplace. 

What Information Do You Need to Perform a Social Media Background Check?

Performing a social media background check is easy. In fact, you do not need a prospective employee’s social security number or any other information that isn’t publicly available. All you need is  the proper authorization, consent, and disclosure you normally collect for  employment screening,  their name, personal email, and birth date, a name and other key pieces of information.

What If a Prospective Employee Has Made a Social Media Profile Private?

If a prospective employee has made their social media accounts private, it can be impossible to find information. In some cases, you will be able to find small pieces of information on an account that has been set to private, but this varies from one platform to another.

Are There Any Legal Issues Associated With Social Media Screenings?

A compliant social media screening is legal. But the keyword is "compliant."

By compliant, we mean a social media background check that...

  • Provides relevant authorizations/disclosures and gets explicit permission from the candidate/employee to conduct the social media screening.
  • Focuses only on business-related information and redacts protected class information when presenting results.
  • Do not use any hacking, pretexting, scraping, or otherwise illegal or unethical ways to gain access to social accounts.
  • It makes a good-faith effort, as dictated by law, to ensure the correct person is being reviewed by using at least 2 matching identifiers, e.g., full name, address, dob, email, employment, education history etc.

Can Social Media Screenings Be Harmful to the Hiring Process?

We find that when conducted internally by hiring managers, a social media background check can expose your company to legal issues such as reviewing and presenting irrelevant protected class information during your research. It's hard to "play "detective" in-house as it leads to wasted hours of unproductivity by your team as they chase information down an endless rabbit hole.  But a quality social media vendor like eKnowID will make sure you see only business-related info; protected class info will be redacted. You get the insights you need to make better hiring decisions while protecting the job candidate's right to privacy.

 

 

Why You Should Choose eKnowID For Your Social Media Screening Needs

If you need to take a look at the social media accounts of prospective employees, eKnowID is the best service to choose, and there are several reasons for this. First, eKnowID offers affordable prices compared to many other social media screening services.

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Furthermore, we will look at an extremely wide range of platforms. However, many other screening services only focus on a handful of websites.

Also, if you have any questions about what we offer, our customer support staff members are exceptionally easy to get in touch with. They’ll be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have about the services that we offer. These are a few other key advantages of choosing eKnowID:

  • eKnowID offers more than just social media screening. In fact, we offer a comprehensive background check service.
  • Our comprehensive background check will identify a prospective employee’s criminal records, history of lawsuits, and information about his or her general reputation (if available).
  • We present the information that we gather in an easy-to-understand manner, which can greatly expedite the hiring process at your company.
  • If you choose us, we’ll ensure that the person’s profiles are examined in their entirety rather than just looking at the foreground.

Get in touch with our trusted social media check experts, or sign up today!

We are available always to meet your needs. Please contact our corporate office via phone for further information.

Phone : 1-888 -SIX CHEC (749-2432)
support@eknowid.com