Sep 10
22
Hiring Based on Friends and Followers?
Imagine if you went into a job interview and the hiring manager asked, “How many friends do you have?” Would that bother you?
Well, you may have to get used to it.
“I now ask candidates how many friends and followers they have on Facebook and Twitter.”
That quote from a hiring manager is both interesting and troubling to me.
I understand the reasoning. In this particular case, the hiring manager runs a nonprofit organization. She needs all the free publicity she can get, and having employees who post about their work on Facebook and other social networks helps to spread the word about their organization for zero cost.
But is that sufficient reason to ask candidates about their friends and followers — and judge them based on the numbers?
I’m sure other qualifications are taken into account by this hiring manager, but if she didn’t put a lot of weight on social networking, she wouldn’t be asking that question. In many career fields, there are far more qualified candidates than jobs. If they are all equally capable of doing the work, it might be tempting to use their social networking potential as justification for picking one over the others.
Is this going to become a growing trend? Employers, seeking free publicity for their companies, hiring people based on their “worth” as social networking tools?
Does that possibility bother you?
Related posts:
