Social media continues to raise new and interesting issues for employers and their businesses.

One such issue that many employers seem to wonder about is the use of Facebook and similar social media sites during the recruitment process.

For example, we’ve received the following question a number of times over recent months: “Is it legal to use information from Facebook when making recruitment decisions?”

As more and more users have joined Facebook, so too have more and more employers started to use the social networking site to “check-up” on potential employees before deciding whether or not to hire them.

But is this legal?

Currently, there is no law against using information that is freely available on the internet to help you assess a candidate for a job – and this includes information that is available on Facebook and in Google searches.

However, you should be careful if you find out information that could give rise to a discrimination claim (such as information relating to the person’s sexual preferences, religious or political beliefs, or membership of a trade union, etc.).

If you do find out information like this, you will have to be careful to base your recruitment decision solely on non-discriminatory criteria (as you would in relation to other prospective employees).

But that’s not all…

Using Facebook to help you assess potential candidates for a job also raises the question: “Are you conducting a fair and equal recruitment process?”

What if one candidate you are considering has a publicly accessible Facebook page and another does not? Is it fair to assess candidates on different terms?

This is something you will also need to consider carefully.

Because the law is currently silent on this issue, it’s up to you as an employer to make responsible decisions – and when it comes to using information you have accessed online to help you form decisions about potential job candidates, you need to do so fairly and consistently.

Tags: facebook, recruitment, recruitment process