Facebook Could Help in Hiring Right Employees: Can Predict Job Success

This one here is for all the bosses and employers currently gearing up for yet another session of selecting candidates for their companies. According to reports, Facebook can now help employers choose the right person for the job with the social networking site having the ability to predict the right kind of job success.

Researchers from the Old Dominion University in Virginia found that Facebook profiles can be equally accurate job performance indicators similar to the different personality tests that are conducted to study on the merits of a candidate.

The new study compared personality traits obtained from Facebook profiles to job candidates' self-reported personality tests in order to find out which method is a better predictor of job performance.

"Not only can you find very current information on someone's social media profile, but you can also access a record of that person's past behaviour," said Katelyn Cavanaugh, one of the study's authors and a doctoral student at Old Dominion.

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"There is value in that; we cannot capture someone's history in a single personality test," Cavanaugh said.

Richard Landers, an Old Dominion assistant professor and the study's co-author, said social media offers employers a realistic mirror image of the person concerned, so the information remains more authentic than what a personality test can reveal, Business News Daily' reported.

"On self-report measures, applicants can generally figure out what the company wants them to be and answer to reflect that. On social media, that's much harder," he said.

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Nonetheless, while this is a great way for employers to learn a lot about potential candidates from social media, the researchers have also stressed upon some of the legal issues that could also arise from the system.

For example, there could be issues with looking at profiles containing information about protected characteristics, such as race, age and sexual orientation.