CVs only tell part of a person’s story so employers are increasingly relying on social media and internet search engines to supplement their knowledge of a candidate they are thinking of interviewing or hiring. But is social media a blessing or a curse when it comes to job hunting and recruiting?

Social media certainly makes life easier for an interviewer or hiring manager, as you can check out your prospective employee at the touch of a key. However, it also means we can ‘intrude’ into people’s lives in a voyeuristic way – which is somewhat strange if, like me, you grew up in the 70s, but not remotely strange for today’s generation. They don’t see it as an intrusion, but perhaps they do need to be better informed about how to use social media to help – rather than hinder them – in their working lives.

As a hirer, picture the scene: a CV lands on your desk for a quantitative account director role. The candidate looks perfect, has graduated from a Russell Group university and has worked at your favourite agency. What could go wrong? You are already imagining which desk they’ll sit at and then you think – I shall Google them. Before you know it you are faced with pictures of nightclubs, protests, drunken behaviour, political activism or potentially worse – bird or trainspotting! Now how are you feeling: not sure all of a sudden?

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google are windows into how people live; we are flooded with information that allows us to judge people before we meet them – I can only imagine the havoc this causes in the dating game.  

No matter what we say and how we want to behave, there is no getting away from it: we are affected by images, statements and blog posts – and that can have a positive or a negative impact on whether we make the next move and offer a candidate a job.

As recruiters, we actively encourage jobseekers to be aware of their Google footprint and refrain from posting images or opinion posts that might adversely reflect on them – but, in today’s over-sharing society, it’s a losing battle. Litigation means that references can just be fact checkers rather than true references, so it’s no surprise that people use social media to check out prospective bosses or employees.  

Social media can work both ways and, as an employer, it can save you a lot of time and expense – so it is important to embrace it. However, I would advise any hirer to suspend judgement until you have met the candidate; then, if you still have questions about their character, conduct some more online research. 

Remember that some of what you might find is in the past. We have to be careful that any Google searches don’t produce reasons not to hire – we already know that you can’t refuse to hire someone on the basis of gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation or religion, so should we be including a bad social media profile in that list?

In a people-driven industry, recruiters are a nosey lot, who enjoy spying on social media – but they also know enough about what to look out for, and what to turn a blind eye to. 

Let’s not forget, we all have a past and we were all young once – it’s just that it wasn’t always so well documented and public.

Sinead Hasson is managing director and founder of Hasson Associates