Social Media and Selection: Political Issue Similarity, Liking, and the Moderating Effect of Social Media Platform

Social Media Screening and Procedural Justice: Towards Fairer Use of Social Media in Selection

“…As screening only certain applicants can be understood as a form of discrimination, it is recommended to perform the screening for all applicants (Bentley 2013;Davison et al 2016). Since employers' screening of social media in selection often occurs ad hoc and in an arbitrary manner (Schroeder et al 2020;Wade et al 2020), organizations should make efforts to standardize the process (Davison et al 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Tews et al 2020;Wade et al 2020) in order to give all participants the chance to obtain positive results. Overall, a considerable number of authors point to the necessity of articulating a clear, standardized policy for carrying out social media screening (Elzweig and Peeples 2009;Davison et al 2012Davison et al , 2016Lam 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Wade et al 2020) and disseminate it to the employees (Elzweig and Peeples 2009).…”

“…Since employers' screening of social media in selection often occurs ad hoc and in an arbitrary manner (Schroeder et al 2020;Wade et al 2020), organizations should make efforts to standardize the process (Davison et al 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Tews et al 2020;Wade et al 2020) in order to give all participants the chance to obtain positive results. Overall, a considerable number of authors point to the necessity of articulating a clear, standardized policy for carrying out social media screening (Elzweig and Peeples 2009;Davison et al 2012Davison et al , 2016Lam 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Wade et al 2020) and disseminate it to the employees (Elzweig and Peeples 2009). This policy should specify the conditions under which social media content should be collected, differentiate job-relevant from irrelevant and discriminatory information, and establish a standardized rating system to account for more objectivity (Tews et al 2020;Wade et al 2020).…”

“…Overall, a considerable number of authors point to the necessity of articulating a clear, standardized policy for carrying out social media screening (Elzweig and Peeples 2009;Davison et al 2012Davison et al , 2016Lam 2016;Landers and Schmidt 2016;Wade et al 2020) and disseminate it to the employees (Elzweig and Peeples 2009). This policy should specify the conditions under which social media content should be collected, differentiate job-relevant from irrelevant and discriminatory information, and establish a standardized rating system to account for more objectivity (Tews et al 2020;Wade et al 2020). Despite the emphasis placed by various authors on the need to structure the process of gathering applicant information via social networks, the study of Schroeder et al (2020) found that adding structure to the process did not lead to the expected improvements in psychometric properties demonstrated in social media screening.…”

“…Social media screening of applicants may induce bias (Wade et al 2020) and discrimination (Manant et al 2019) for a variety of reasons. One source of discrimination against applicants is the demographic information published on a social media profile.…”

“…Such job-irrelevant content may induce biases related to the values, attitudes and beliefs of an applicant. For example, if recruiters find information on applicants' political views (Wade et al 2020) or, if a candidate likes a certain sports team the employer hates, the stereotype of the employer may lead to a negative hiring decision (Jones and Behling 2010). The research of Wade et al (2020) demonstrates that employers tend to rate applicants higher in a social media screening situation when they feel that those applicants are similar to them.…”