Social media has offered a brand new landscape of opportunity for hiring top talent. However, there are a few rules of engagement that may help hiring managers avoid legal trouble when using social media to engage and vet job candidates. At Smokeball, we’ve implemented a Social Media policy in our Employee Handbook for new and existing employees to read and rely on when questions arise.

1. Make social media vetting a part of your process. If you’re using social media to vet job candidates, the same process must be used for all of your candidates. For example, if it’s your policy to review the past six months of public social media postings of job candidates, you must do that for every candidate. If you choose to check the social media accounts of some candidates while not doing the same for other candidates this could cause problems especially if some of your candidates belong to a protected class. For example, if you have one candidate who is disabled and you decide to not hire them after reviewing their social media where they reveal their disability you could be vulnerable to bias lawsuits at a later date.
2. Make face-to-face contact first. Do not vet a candidate’s social media accounts before you interview them. While it may seem efficient to weed out candidates who have negative or unprofessional social media postings before offering an interview, this can set you up for problems in the future. If a candidate’s social media postings reveal that they are part of a protected class and you fail to offer them an interview solely because of their social media postings, that candidate could later accuse you of refusing to interview them because of their protected class status. By interviewing the candidate first, you help mitigate some of the risk of being sued because of discrimination.
3. Don’t use stealth or sneaky practices. Pretending to be a friend to gain access to a candidate’s private social media postings is just bad form.  When reviewing a candidate’s social media postings only use public postings—those posting that can be seen without following or adding the candidate as a friend. A matter of fact, if your policy is to review job candidate’s social media, it’s best to inform them of this fact beforehand. Transparency is the best policy.
4. Stay professional. When reviewing a candidate’s social media postings don’t spend time focused on religious, political, or personal opinions. The focus should remain on a candidate’s professionalism and integrity. For example, are the candidate’s online statements consistent with their statements on their resume and during their interview? If you find inconsistencies about work history or experience, give the candidate a chance to clear it up before you pass judgment.
5. Don’t contact second parties. When it comes to seeking references, stick with the reference given to you by the job candidate. Don’t contact friends of friends via Facebook to find out what they know about a job candidate. These types of tactics are bad form because they are invasive and unauthorized by the candidate. It’s also important to understand that different people have different types of relationships. A job candidate’s best friend from high school won’t necessarily have the same experience a your job candidate as a coworker in the workplace.

Establishing a good set of rules about social media engagement is critical to maintaining a healthy and respectful relationship with job candidates.