Social Media Policies – Linking/Friending Etiquette during a Hiring Process
Pure Visibility has been fortunate to be hiring! We’ve met some wonderful people through our job postings and through attending local job fairs and workshops. However, the social nature of today’s businesses and today’s hiring process has caused us to re-examine our internal policies. Essentially, we discovered we needed to be more deliberate about how we as a company, and how I as a member of this company, interact with applicants and candidates through social media.
What to Do When a Candidate asks to “Link In”
I Heart Job Offers Resume T-shirt by BlackBirdTees
LinkedIn is a great place to find candidates, network for business, and learn more about people’s work history and connections. Until recently, I was pretty loose, accepting people as the invitations arrived.
A few events led me to decide we needed to be more formal about it, during the hiring process. In one case, someone who applied for one position and was redirected to a different position was able to see the candidate we were favoring for the first position in my LinkedIn connection history.
I got a note saying “Hey, saw who I think my competition was, I totally understand why you went with her.” Which was a great response, except the details were not final and so we’d inadvertently made an “announcement” about our hiring process midstream.
Then, after a job fair, I received a number of LinkedIn requests. As the hiring manager, it makes sense that individuals I spoke with at the fair wanted to stay top of my mind. But, I worried about what message I was sending by accepting. Was I leading them on? Would they still want to connect at the end of the process, regardless of outcome? What is polite and what is proper in this case?
I decided that I should hold all Link requests until after the process is complete, and then accept them or decline them at that time. This seemed the most fair to candidates and our process.
What to Do When You’re a Facebook Friend of a Candidate?
In a separate hiring situation, we had an applicant I already knew from a non-work situation in Ann Arbor. We were Facebook friends, and during the process of considering the candidate, making an offer, waiting for the details to be ironed out, and in the period between the acceptance of the offer and the new hire’s start date, I think we both felt pretty weird about what we posted on Facebook.
I can only imagine her stress during the process. I have to admit I go to Facebook intermittently. Maybe once a week, sometimes more, often less. I wasn’t watching her stream. But I can imagine she might have felt a little trapped or at least aware of the potential for scrutiny…
An Age-Old Problem, with Heightened Visibility
Social Media platforms don’t present anything new. This kind of “in between” social stress can also happen in real time interactions. For example, I saw the “Facebook friend” candidate on the street in the last week of her hiring process. The candidate was with someone else, it turned out to be a family member, but it could have been a colleague from her then-employer.
So, I was friendly but distant, I did not want to invade the candidate’s space, yet there was this weighty thing between us…and I know the candidate was trying to read my interaction for information on her status.
So, none of the pain I’m describing of interacting with candidates during the hiring process is isolated to social media. It’s part of the awkwardness of being human, being social. However, the fact that interactions between individuals is shared with a social network broadcasts and amplifies the interaction.
Our Decision
One of our core values is simplicity. So, we’re looking to create a simple policy to avoid this kind of awkwardness, and to avoid having to think it through in individual instances. I am going to wait until the hiring processes are complete before accepting link requests.
Looking for More Guidance?
The Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group has compiled a great directory of corporate social media policies that you can review. Looking at examples from this list is sure to inspire and inform.
Subscribe to our Twitter feed.
