Employers are stalking your Facebook and this startup helps them

For good or ill, social media is now fair game for recruiters and HR departments when checking out job candidates.

Still, it can be messy to Google-stalk potential hires and track down their various profiles. A Sydney-based startup, The Social Index, has built a tool that aims to streamline that process. From early 2015, the company has been building the platform and working with a few trusted businesses to really "push on it," founder Fiona McLean told Mashable.

It works like this: Shortlisted job candidates receive an email with a unique identifier. Following a two-factor authentication process, the candidate signs into their accounts for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and the program's algorithm analyses their social footprint in around 30 seconds.

Within 24 hours, both the candidate and the client should receive the resulting report.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

It's about delivering the big picture of how someone uses social media. "We aggregate trends," she explained. "It's not about one or two posts being profiled, and that deciding someone's career. I think that's what's currently happening."

Factors examined in the report include whether a candidate is posting, their interactions and how often they're posting. "I worked with someone early on who was hiring for a social media role, and they were getting a lot of people who were saying 'well I know social media, I do a lot of it,' but the reality was they knew the theory of it but couldn't demonstrate it," McLean explained.

She said the tool would align with the role. If the job requires a lot of social media activity, then it will be flagged as a positive if the person is very active.

"If the role is a back office accountant and they are equally on social media between 10 and 4, the chances are, they are not doing the core part of the role as well as they could," she added.

So simple, but so terrifying.

McLean admitted the company was very conscious of privacy concerns. The system only looks at public information, she emphasised, and it doesn't share individual posts with companies. "We want to give assurance to the candidate, too: If it's not online, then a client can't see it in the report," she said.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the social platforms chosen for analysis, mostly because they're common, but also because they're typically most relevant to a company's client activities or reputation.

Given the depth of social media data being collected, is there a risk that people could be penalised for their social media use in ways they can't anticipate?

In McLean's experience as an HR professional, there is always going to be one or two negatives. Nevertheless, she believes social media analysis could level the playing field.

"I think what social media does is show how you can get things done. If you demonstrate that you can impact your network, if it's beyond your mum and best friend, then that's a great conversation," she said. "That applies equally to a graduate as it does to someone with years of experience."

McLean also said that if someone does not want a site examined, they don't have to provide it. "If there's no reason to ask for Facebook and it's not relevant to the role, it doesn't get asked for," she added.

But if a site is asked for and a candidate does not give permission, that could surely be a negative during the interview process, deservedly or not.

In response, McLean suggested there's a common misconception that social media data is private. For her, the tool is better than a Google search, which is the current approach. After all, with Google, you can't even be sure the profile you're looking at is for the right person.

While many job seekers could find the idea confronting, in her view, The Social Index is definite improvement on the current hiring process.

"It's a lot of fun, but it's also the riskiest decision you make," she said. "You spend a short amount of time with someone and you don't always have a great insight into how you can determine culture fit and longterm success."