RSSHow well can Internet screening really work?
There are probably some Human Resources blogs somewhere where you can read the official view on the use of Internet-based background screening on new-hire candidates, but for the most part what I seem to run across are the cautionary tales posted by the applicants, who are less sanguine about the prospect.
Getting Googled as a precondition for employment (or a date, for that matter) is old hat. Embarrassing photos on Facebook tanking the prospective investment banking careers of drunken frat boys isn't news. The latest speculation, though, is over whether or not new location-based tracking services like Foursquare and Gowalla will be the latest resource for companies to check and potentially use against applicants.
I don't have a problem with organizations that do this sort of screening, or any other sort, really; applicants are free to apply or not apply anywhere they want based on whatever information they can uncover about those jobs or businesses, companies should have the same sort of discretion. The protections in place for employees after they are hired are fairly strong, so the time and place to protect the business is before making the hire.
Whether or not it's actually a worthwhile effort that can tell you, as the hiring party, anything useful, is another question. As a CIO, you are primarily looking at technically oriented staff, the sort who are more likely to use this sort of service… but they are also capable of hiding their tracks more adeptly. And are you discriminating against applicants with unusual names? I use a full range of these services, but good luck trying to find me among the cloud of other folks or the Scottish engineering firm with the same name. And so what if your applicant was at a strip club at one AM on a Sunday morning? Maybe they were picking up a drunk friend. There's just a limited number of things you can infer from the information you actually might find.
