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Social Media in the Hiring Process

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SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE HIRING PROCESS
Preeti Khare
Central Michigan University
Human Resource Management MGT-643
Dr. Edward Ward
3/29/2015

Introduction
Employers can use Social Networking Websites (SNWs) in two ways when hiring: to recruit candidates by publicizing job openings, and to assess potential candidate’s profile including attitude, behavior, personality and qualifications. Kluemper and Rosen (2009) examined the feasibility of whether the information available on these SNWs really helps to improve the employment selection decisions. They asked 63 raters to rate candidates on intelligence, performance and the Big Five personality traits. They found that based solely on viewing social networking profiles, judges were consistent in their ratings across subjects and were typically able to accurately distinguish high from low performers. In addition, raters who are more intelligent and emotionally stable outperformed their counterparts. Given this reliability of assessment, SNWs such as Instagram, My Space, Facebook, and Linked In with hundreds of millions of profiles could be gainfully deployed in hiring decisions. Not surprisingly SNWs have become extremely popular and useful in the hiring process these days.
However, use of SNWs in hiring does not come without accompanied costs and risks. Scholars argue that the use of SNWs increases the chances of decisions being affected by unrelated information such as race, gender, origin, nationality and may increase the risk of litigation (Radogna, 2011). Debate rages on the tradeoffs involving the use of SNWs in hiring process.
This paper analyses the use of various Social Networking Sites during the hiring process. The overall pros of using social media in hiring process outweigh the cons when it is deployed with methods that minimize cons.

Pros and Cons
The use of Social media clearly has picked up in

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