Fairness Perceptions of Screening Social Networking Sites for Hiring Decisions

Abstract

As the popularity of social networking sites (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) continues to increase, employers are beginning to use these sites as sources of screening applicants for hiring purposes. Employers feel the need to screen the sites due to a number of legitimate business concerns related to hiring applicants including illegal activity such as drug use and inappropriate behavior such as negative work comments about one's current workplace. However, there are concerns with the level of privacy invasiveness employers are using to find this information such as requiring login information. This study's primary focus was to determine if levels of privacy invasiveness and legitimate business concerns would influence fairness perceptions. Higher levels of privacy invasiveness and less serious levels of the legitimate business concerns found resulted in lower fairness perceptions. Results indicate potential issues employers may encounter as they attempt to balance their legitimate business concerns with applicants' privacy concerns.