Online recruiting service PNet has partnered with Social8er, a service that creates social media CVs.
This allows recruiters to gather data from candidates' social media profiles. Jobseekers are also able to view the reports available to recruiters, in order to learn how to tame their online profiles to gain a competitive edge in the job market.
The service works as an app add-on to social networks, with support currently available for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and soon to be available for Google+. When setting up a profile on PNet, a candidate is able to complete the application permissions process for the social networks of their choice, making their data available to Social8er. Users can opt out at any stage by removing the applications from their networks.
The information taken from social networks is compiled to create a report on individual candidates, including their influence, credibility and vulgarity. These metrics take into account factors such as whether individuals post content about a certain industry, and whether they receive a high level of engagement with their posts. Social8er also assesses whether the type of content produced by an individual includes risk factors such as profanity, drunkenness or pessimism.
The report helps to determine how well an individual is likely to fit in with a particular company's culture. The accuracy of a candidate's CV is assessed by comparing the CV posted on PNet with social media information, including that on LinkedIn, and can raise a red alert if there are gaps indicating a discrepancy in the information.
Currently, the report refreshes every hour, but the goal is to increase this to every seven minutes, essentially functioning in real time.
Why social CVs?
Social8er serves jobseekers as much as recruiters, says Philip Mostert, co-creator and founder of Social8er. However, jobseekers may need some convincing.
"There is a huge amount of education required around a product like this," he says. "People are saying, 'no, this is my private environment!' The problem is that, according to international research, recruiters are using social media to profile candidates."
Research conducted by Social8er indicates that 80% of employers and recruiters use social networks to screen candidates, and 70% have rejected a candidate based on social media content.
"We provide education for the user to understand the employment process, and empower them to understand what information is visible and become aware of the type of content they produce. It's all about managing one's reputation in the market: once someone is aware of their profile, they can become more critical of their own posts, as well as the posts they're tagged in, and start a social media detox," notes Mostert.
He adds: "The job market is already competitive and is only going to get worse, with a qualified, deeply experienced, unemployed workforce. In order to be more marketable and present the most competitive information they can, candidates need to use their social media CVs in conjunction with black-and-white CVs."
Although making the reports available to candidates could allow users to cover up their warts and hide certain characteristics from recruiters, Mostert feels there is important value in the service for recruiters.
"It gives a cultural identification. Recruitment is about relevancy beyond the risk factor. Social8er is more of a psychometric pairing, so recruiters can use this tool to understand the cultural or psychological impact brought to an organisation by a certain individual. Are they the right fit, do they meet the culture of the organisation?"
Currently, recruiters visit LinkedIn more than any other social network to gain information on candidates, but, says Mostert, LinkedIn is typically a CV replacement, and recruiters would do well to scrutinise social and cultural data around that individual.
"It's not only about being a watchdog, looking for bad elements and debauchery, but is also about determining the cultural fit with an organisation," he says.
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