As more people create Facebook profiles (500 million and growing), and sign on to the many social media sites available today, hiring managers are finding they have new opportunities to get background information on job candidates.

But in between the good and the bad information is plenty of data that is illegal to view if you are making a hiring decision. And even if a hiring manager honestly does not use off-limits material, once they have seen it on Facebook, it can become grounds for a lawsuit.

Is it right to use social media to get to know your applicants in the first place? The bottom line is what you do with the information you get. If you need it to verify your applicant’s isn’t that something that you have right to access? Here ae some ways you can make sure you legally use these social media sites to do background checks.

• Be open. Getting information behind people’s backs isn’t being very honest. Be up front and let your applicants know that you’ll be checkign out their facebook or Twitter profiles. This way you’ll be able to get authorization.  Once you do, find good or bad signs about the person. If they post ‘questionable’ photos for example this may be a ‘red light’ for you. Or if they are involved in some kind of charity work. Make a list of the information that you’ve got from their wall

• Don’t believe everything you see. We all know how ‘deceptive’ the information social media sites can be. People don’t reveal their ‘real’ selves on these sites for obvious privacy reasons so don’t base your judgment on whatever you see.

For more tips on this, click here.

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