The Social Media Detectives

[caption id="attachment_2058" align="alignleft" width="337" caption="Social Media Bandwagon"][/caption]

There is no doubt that social media is a worldwide phenomenon.  Outlets such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many more, are wonderful ways to keep in touch with people from all over and share pictures to friends and family. But it is important to be careful with what you’re posting online, especially when searching for a job. The year-old search tool, Social Intelligence, allows companies to search through the internet history of prospective employees. According to The New York Times, this tool compiles a profile including professional honors and charitable work, as well as more negative results such as online evidence of racist remarks, drug references, sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos, and displays of weapons, bombs and violent activity.  Jennifer Preston of the New York Times discusses more.

A year-old start-up, Social Intelligence, scrapes the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years.

Then it assembles a dossier with examples of professional honors and charitable work, along with negative information that meets specific criteria: online evidence of racist remarks; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos; flagrant displays of weapons or bombs and clearly identifiable violent activity.

“We are not detectives,” said Max Drucker, chief executive of the company, which is based in Santa Barbara, Calif. “All we assemble is what is publicly available on the Internet today.”

The Federal Trade Commission, after initially raising concerns last fall about Social Intelligence’s business, determined the company is in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the service still alarms privacy advocates who say that it invites employers to look at information that may not be relevant to job performance.

And what relevant unflattering information has led to job offers being withdrawn or not made? Mr. Drucker said that one prospective employee was found using Craigslist to look for OxyContin. A woman posing naked in photos she put up on an image-sharing site didn’t get the job offer she was seeking at a hospital.

Read more at New York Times Technology