Talking to a VP of HR I know and respect last week. Topic of googling candidates to find out more about them came up. Guess what? My friend told me that he has instructed his recruiters not to google candidates as he feels it's an intrusion of privacy and a potential legal risk.
Guess what my response was?
Right – "You are C.R.A.Z.Y.! Have you lost your mind?"
After diving a layer deeper in the conversation, it turns out my friend had attended a conference where
someone talked about legal risks of making rejection decisions based on what you find online. Additionally, you wouldn't define my friend as a member of the digital revolution. He waxes poetic about the dangers of the blackberry. His VCR, bought in the 80's at "SoundsGreat", undoubtedly is blinking 12:00 AM as I write this.
But enough about him. Do you google candidates? Do you feel bad about doing it? If you aren't doing it (time investment – 60 seconds), why not? If you feel bad, why?
Here are my cliff notes on why you should be googling candidates:
1. You are an agent of your company – it's your job to get the inside scoop on candidates. The world's not always a happy place. Put your helmet on and get in the game.
2. The legal risk of not doing it will ultimately outweigh the risk of doing it. Let's say you hire a stalker, who ultimately starts stalking one of your employees. Turns out you could have seen an article with the employee's name in it by googling. Didn't show up in your background check because it was too fresh. Think the liability is stronger by googling or not googling? If you said not googling, go back to the start of the article and read it again.
3. You've got cover, my friend. There are hundreds of reasons you might reject a candidate, and you don't tell the candidate any of them. Does "We love your background, but we have elected to make an offer to a candidate who is a more direct match to our needs.." ring a bell?
If you aren't googling, get in the game, skippy. If you're reading a Talent blog, you're probably already digital enough to be in the game in a big way. Sadly, lots of your peers aren't.
Kris Dunn is a Partner and CHRO at Kinetix, a national RPO firm for growth companies headquartered in Atlanta. He’s also the founder Fistful of Talent (founded in 2008) and The HR Capitalist (2007) – and has written over 70 feature columns at Workforce Management magazine. Prior to his investment at Kinetix, Kris served in HR leadership roles at DAXKO, Charter and Cingular. In his spare time, KD hits the road as a speaker and gives the world what it needs – pop culture references linked to Human Capital street smarts.