A LITTLE ATTENTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA … PLEASE

A recent American research showed that 62% of corporate recruiting managers consider the social profiles of candidates to get a first idea of ​​the candidate’s personality.

In Italy, the situation is quite close to the American one; in fact, a research by Adecco and the Università Cattolica (although not very recent) placed around 45% of employers who checked social profiles to get a first idea of ​​their candidates. Even assuming that the situation has not undergone major changes, we could certainly estimate that a candidate has a 50% chance that his social profile will be viewed by his possible next employer.

We all agree that this is only a preliminary phase of a possible cognitive study, performed through a face-to-face interview, carried out either remotely or in person.

American research focuses on the political content of posts, which appear to have a very strong impact on American recruiters. It seems that in America the fact of being subject to a strong political bipolarity conditions the choices of recruiters in the same way: in other words, the candidate has about the same probability of having a Democratic or Republican recruiter in front of him and therefore, on a statistical level, the what does not impact particularly significantly.

In Italy, the situation is certainly different. In the meantime, there is no such exasperated political bipolarity and therefore the sympathy towards a certain political structure does not usually generate in the recruiters any feeling of hostility or benevolence (the 60s and 70s, in which political sentiment was fundamental in personal and social relations, are now far away). If anything, it is above all the person’s private life or rather his social habits to be the subject of any research by a recruiter.

We believe that this possible research, by a recruiter, has the main objective of finding inconsistencies between the candidate’s social profile and his curricular statements, rather than creating a dossier on his personal habits.

But, at this point, it seems only right to refer to today’s privacy laws, currently valid throughout the European community, in which “personal data of particular categories” are considered all information that reveals racial or ethnic origin, beliefs religious, philosophical, political views, trade union membership, health or sex life states. We also remind you that art. 9 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 also included in this notion genetic data, biometric data and those relating to sexual orientation. In this context, we would just like to mention that data relating to criminal convictions and offenses also enjoy the same absolute legislative coverage. Therefore, they are all data that could be processed only with the prior consent of the interested party, who should also be informed in detail of the objectives and methods of collecting the personal data.

While, on the one hand there is a certain superficiality of the candidate in accepting all the implications inherent in the carefree publication of information, photos and personal data thoughts on social networks, on the other hand it should be remembered that recruiters could not and therefore should not use this information to decide the business fate of a possible candidate.

To conclude, we would like to remind everyone of a “wise and prudent” use of social networks, to avoid that a friendship granted too easily on Facebook or a photo that portrays us a little tipsy in an evening with colleagues could cost us a career advancement or a new job opportunity.

ACTION ICT (April 2022)

ACTION ICT is a young, dynamic and innovative IT company. It operates, both nationally and internationally, offering professional skills and design solutions in the ICT field to medium and large businesses. Our highly skilled know-how is housed in three expertise specific departments: ACTION DATA (Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence), ACTION APP (Web & Mobile Application) and ACTION IOT (Internet of Things and Robotics).