We think social media is a great recruiting tool, but unfortunately it doesn’t always work out in our favor.

On Tuesday, we began talking about one area where we seem to run into trouble the most with social media: screening candidates.

However, don’t worry because while there are setbacks to using social media as a screening method, there are also plenty of ways you can use social media and get the results you want.

We’ve already talked about why you should avoid looking for a candidate’s negative characteristics via social media. To finish off our series, here are the rest of our tips on how to use social media when screening candidates. Take a look below:

Screen one, screen all:

• If you are going to go through the trouble of screening one candidate, then you need to make sure that you screen them all. Nothing is worse than having two candidates who end up being hired, or during the process talk about their interviews and find out that one was screened and the other was not. Not only does it make you look bad and possibly lose their trust, but it can also make the employee (or worse, a potential candidate) second-guess their value to the company and become jaded.
• Plus, if you feel the need to screen one candidate over the other, then perhaps that is already an indication that you doubt the candidate is right for the job.
• To ensure that something like this doesn’t happen we suggest screening them all. You should also consider having a set of guidelines on what to look for, making the whole process much easier and headache free.

When it doubt, don’t:

• If you have any doubts about using social media to screen candidates, then you probably shouldn’t. As TLNT contributor and noted HR expert, Kevin Mason, points out: “Sure, there is a lot of information out there that can help you evaluate a candidate, but there is a lot of information that could hurt your business in the event a candidate is not hired.”
• So, if you have any fear that this might happen to you, we suggest you just leave the social media screenings to others.

What do you think about screening candidates using social media? Do you do it? What are the benefits and what are the setbacks? Let us know your thoughts by connecting with us on Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to hear from you!

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