ProProfs in Wall Street Journal on screening employees using social media

Wall Street Journal ProProfs CEO Sameer Bhatia shared his views with the Wall Street Journal on how companies can use social networking sites such as LinkedIn, to screen potential employees. The recently published article talks more on how companies check the social media profiles of potential candidates before hiring them.

It’s key points are:

Figuring out a candidate’s personality: Companies easily figure out the personalities of candidates by checking to see if a candidate uses inappropriate language, provides excessive personal information, is a know-it-all or disparages colleagues and organizations on social networking sites. Pete Maulik, CSO at Fahrenheit 212, mentions that they let a potential candidate go because on checking his LinkedIn profile, they figured out that he was not a team player. 

Checking dishonest work ethics: Among the social networks, LinkedIn is where companies go to find specific professional details of potential candidates. ProProfs CEO Sameer Bhatia mentions that they did not recruit a potential freelance writer when they found out through his LinkedIn profile that he was already freelancing for another company. “We saw this as a sign of dishonesty and lack of loyalty,” he says.

Read full article: Beware: Potential Employers Are Watching You
Recruiting qualified and productive employees is crucial for any company, regardless of its size and scale. In this light, ProProfs offers varied and effective tools, which helps companies in the recruitment process.

Additional Tips & Tools From ProProfs:

Conduct an online interview

An online interview is beneficial for both the company as well as the job seeker. Companies reduce their recruitment time as they can host the interview right on their Careers page and do not have to waste money and time conducting live interviews only to realize that the candidate does not meet their job expectations. On the other hand, job seekers save time as they get instant feedback and don’t have to wait for someone to call them later to confirm whether they have been shortlisted on not. You can create an online interview with ProProfs Quiz Maker.

Create a skill assessment test

A pre-employment skill assessment test is important for companies to ensure that they hire qualified candidates. Software companies or financial institutions require candidates with special and clearly defined skill sets, therefore it’s necessary for them to accurately judge the aptitude of a candidate using precise skill assessment tests. ProProfs has a huge bank of existing skill assessment tests on a wide range of topics such as HR policy knowledge test, JAVA skill assessment test and many more which help you to improve your company’s selection process.

Create personality tests

Many companies use personality tests to screen job applicants. The test can be used to judge an employee on different job specific skills for example if you are hiring a sales executive then you need to find out whether the candidate is good in relationship management and teamwork. Likewise, a good accountant has to be detail oriented and methodical. With ProProfs you can easily create personality tests or even pick and use one from the hundreds of free personality tests that our users have created.

Add interactive polls or surveys

The Wall Street Journal article on companies using social networks to screen and recruit employees is an eye opener to say the least. However, just as employers check the Facebook and Twitter profiles of prospective candidates before hiring, job seekers too check the company’s social network profiles before applying. Keeping your company’s social network profiles interactive and engaging attracts qualified and talented candidates. You can create interactive polls or surveys on ProProfs Poll & Survey Maker and easily embed them on your company’s social networks.