Why job hunters need to be extra careful with FB, Linked In profiles

Nearly half of Singaporeans using social media for recruitment reject candidates based on what they see from their profiles.

Singapore recruiters are more comfortable using social media to screen candidates compared to their counterparts in China, Hong Kong and Australia according to a recent survey by Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) and The Chapman Consulting Group, which investigated the use of social media among recruitment and HR professionals across the Asia-Pacific region.

Martin Cerullo, AMS Global Director of Resourcing Communications & Managing Director for Development, APAC commented, “It is enlightening to note that businesses in Asia and especially in Singapore are leveraging the potential of social media to better manage their candidate sourcing and employer branding capabilities. For example, Singapore employers use social media platforms for building their brand presence and awareness, communicating with potential candidates and on professional sites, such as LinkedIn, sourcing new candidates.”

According to the results from the survey, Singaporean firms actively use social media to screen candidates. Close to 40% of respondents admitted to using social media to vet candidates. Nearly half of that number chose to reject candidates based on what they see from their social media profiles.

“Candidates need to practice caution when sharing their personal lives online. They need to realise the importance of tweaking their privacy settings to limit the visibility of their content to certain groups of people. In addition to this they also need to think about what they are actually putting online. Such is the growing penetration power of social media in recent times that it is unavoidable for public profiles to be scrutinized,” said Cerullo. 

The survey suggests that screening is not restricted solely to employers. It is a two-way process in which candidates scrutinize the online profiles of companies as well. Therefore, it is not surprising that Singapore firms place the greatest emphasis on employer branding using social media. Over 90% of respondents from Singapore indicated that their focus for social media is to grow their branding to attract the best talents for the job compared to the regional average at just over 70%.

Sourcing for quality applicants requires the use of a diverse range of social media platforms. According to the study, Hong Kong’s usage of LinkedIn is 20% more than Singapore. However, Singapore uses six social media platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Renren and Weibo compared to Hong Kong’s four – LinkedIn, Facebook, Weibo and Twitter in order of usage.

These statistics are key indicators of the strategy firms are taking to attract top talent. Hong Kong companies focus their attention on the core platforms to ensure better returns while Singapore firms cast a wider net by diversifying their use of the six major platforms picked for this study to reach as many candidates as possible.

“Singapore is leading the way in harnessing the multi-faceted use of social media. The notion of social media being a personal platform is a thing of the past as firms in APAC, most notably Singapore, point to a drastic uptake in social media usage,” said Cerullo.