Comments on: Media Screening Can Help to Avoid Brand Damage Through a Bad Hire

By: Keith Halperin

Keith Halperin — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:28:04 +0000

Thank you, David and Jeff. It’s been my experience that background checks have always been sent out to firms such as Jeff’s.

Cheers,
Keith

By: David Nadell

David Nadell — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:54:14 +0000

Keith- Jeff rightly makes a distinction between media searches and social media screening. Long before social media, organizations relied on firms like Jeff’s (HR Plus), Kroll, and others in the background screening industry to provide media searches on high profile, executive level employees, BOD candidates and other advisors, investors, etc. where greater due diligence should be exercised. (full disclosure: I was a VP with Kroll and Director with Social Intelligence)

That said, the lines between social media information and the media search examples provided are becoming blurred. For example, how are an executive’s blog posts – whether on a personal, company, or industry blog, or perhaps as a LinkedIn thought leader – different or less relevant today than bylined articles, quotes, or other references to the person in “newspapers, trade publications, professional journals,” etc.? Some would apply the same argument to tweets, FB posts, and other social media, but that’s a whole other article.

By: Keith Halperin

Keith Halperin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:58:04 +0000

Thanks, Jeff. This seems like a higher-level of due diligence. Who will perform it? If this comes up frequently (as with a large, growing firm), it might be cost-effective to keep a trained investigator on retainer or hire to handle this sort of thing.

Cheers,

Keith

By: Kevin Potter

Kevin Potter — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:00:55 +0000

Todd – thanks for this. Your comment on positioning our service is quite correct and I noted ‘for disclosure’ in my comment. You quite correct, the article in the middle draws the distinction on media screening practices and how this differs to the personal aspect of social media check – it is in this positioning that my interest lay and commentary.

By: Todd Noebel

Todd Noebel — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:38:56 +0000

Jeff – this is a really enjoyable, smart article and highlights an interesting bridge. Deep expert recruiters have been doing media screening for years – but they’ve been doing it primarily to develop their candidate pipelines.

Your article suggests formally incorporating the media profile into the overall candidate picture. An excellent idea. I think it fits well when organizations look to truly partner with recruiting (internal or external) and focus on quality of search effort over quantity. But then, every organization does that, right?

Kevin – your comment missed a key point (made in big bold text), that this is NOT about social network screening. Unfortunately, your comment is a thinly veiled attempt to advertise your service.

By: Kevin Potter

Kevin Potter — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:04:16 +0000

There are emerging automated tools out there to address this issue for recruiters. For disclosure, like the Social Resume we represent at CrewRevu, that automates the manual screening, includes one click candidate approval (alot of information is hidden if you not a ‘friend’ and we solve this) and importantly does not expose viewers of social media profiles to discriminatory datapoints (eg sexual preferences, illness etc). Hopefully this has been helpful.