9 Potential Negatives to Using Social Media to Recruit New Hires

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Welcome to Recruiter Q&A, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers!

Today’s Question: What’s one potential negative you see to companies using social media to recruit new hires ? Why is it negative?

These answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization composed of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, and have created tens of thousands of jobs.

1. You May Only Reach a Certain Group of Candidates

Oftentimes, especially for small businesses and early stage startups, a company’s social media following is still a tight community aligned not only in values, but also in thinking. However, different roles require different experiences and points of views to be brought in. Fixating on owned social media channels as your key source may limit your access to more diverse candidates. — Daria Gonzalez, Wunderdogs 

 

2. You’re Only Gleaning Surface-Level Information

Looking at a new hire’s social media account is like judging a company based on their logo and design alone. It can give you good insight into their personality, values, and more, but you need to actually dive deep into their work and experience to get a proper feel for how they will perform. — Ryan D Matzner, Fueled 

 

3. You Could Receive Bad Reviews

There is the potential for bad reviews from candidates you don’t pursue. Plenty of folks look for jobs on social media. Unfortunately, a good percentage of those folks simply will not meet the requirements for the job. When they see that they have been passed over, they may react negatively, which could potentially damage your online reputation. — Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance 

 

4. Fact-Checking May Take Longer

When using social media to recruit new hires, you risk not knowing the legitimacy of candidates right off the bat. Social media has no fact-checker, so it’s possible you might find yourself spending more time checking sources and references than you would if you were using another system. — Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms 

 

5. It Could Create Bias

When you use social media to recruit people, you can learn a lot about them. Unfortunately, that leads to some bias too. With how much transparency is available through social media, it is easy to find people’s flaws. And in many cases, even a profile that looks blank and incomplete may put you off a good candidate, creating a lose-lose situation. — Blair Williams, MemberPress 

 

6. You Could End Up Disappointed

Using social media to hire new candidates can have its own demerits. For example, you might be misled by their profile to think something differently about the candidate. Then, when you meet the candidate for real, they might be completely different from what you saw on their social media. This can be a disappointing experience, and you’ll need more time to hire new people too. — Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster 

 

7. Not Everyone Is on Social Media

Recruiting exclusively via social media can be negative when you rule out talented people who just aren’t that interested in social media or who like their privacy. Not every role requires a robust social media presence. For example, you can have a skilled and experienced warehouse manager who just doesn’t care about tweeting. Hire through social media, but cast your nets elsewhere too. — Tyler Bray, TK Trailer Parts 

 

8. Talents and Skills May Be Misrepresented

My biggest concern about using social media to hire candidates is that the details in their profiles may be inaccurate and unreliable. People’s personalities and social and professional skills change over time. So what’s presented on social media might be a misrepresentation of their skills and talents. — Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite 

 

9. It Might Be More Hassle Than It’s Worth

The biggest drawback to using social media to hire new recruits is that it’s going to take a lot of time to find qualified candidates. When you use tools like job boards, you still have to do some digging to find the right people for your company, but there are over 4 billion people on social media, so finding the right candidate on these platforms might be more trouble than it’s worth. — John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC 

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