Almost every fifth Russian was denied a job because of the content of his personal pages on social networks

Almost every fifth Russian was denied a job because of the content of his personal pages on social networks. Experts from the “HR Lab.—HR Innovation Laboratory” project and the “Health Academy” platform came to these conclusions after studying the impact of candidates’ activity on social networks on the employment process. Many employers ask applicants to submit profile addresses even before the interview stage. Today, an online portrait is one of the tools for assessing the qualities of a potential employee, the importance of which will grow, experts interviewed by Kommersant confirm.

The HR Lab project and the Health Academy platform surveyed 1,663 respondents on behalf of the AlfaStrakhovanie company. The online survey involved Russians aged 18 to 55 years from large cities (the majority from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Krasnodar, Kazan, Ufa, Novosibirsk and Omsk). Researchers found out what impact social networks have on the employment process.

As it turned out, 67% of respondents were asked for personal page addresses when applying for a job by employer representatives even before the interview stage.

19% of respondents were denied employment because of the content of their profiles, and 31% faced the need to answer additional questions from the HR officer and potential manager because of this.

Employers have paid increased attention to applicant data in the last two years, the authors note. The sample represents 11% of managers who hired staff themselves. Of these, 28% said that they limit themselves to viewing basic information and photos, 24% study author’s publications. 9% said that using user nicknames they found messages on forums and public pages that influenced the final impression of the applicant.

“For small companies, a unified ecosystem in a team is of decisive importance, and social networks can help the employer get an idea of ​​a person’s interests,” notes Alisa Bezlyudova, director of the marketing department at Medicine AlfaStrakhovanie. “In the future, common interests become a bonding factor for colleagues.” Nevertheless, Ms. Bezlyudova is confident that when hiring, “the assessment based on an online portrait, although it is primary, should not become decisive.”

13% of study participants said that they created accounts on social networks specifically to impress colleagues or employers. 24% of these users made special selections of personal photos, 32% cleared posts and reposts, as well as the feed of public subscriptions, and 18%, on the contrary, collected subscriptions to thematic accounts in order to form the correct impression of being immersed in work issues. Only 2% of survey participants completely hid their social networks from view.

HRFeedBack CEO Anna Filina notes that the tendency to check social media pages when hiring new employees will only increase.

“Our profiles are working tools that can be a powerful tool for finding a job and career growth,” explains the expert. “With a well-filled profile, headhunters can pay attention to you, even when you are not looking for a job, and try to lure you to another company, offering potentially interesting vacancies that are not publicly available, with salaries, as a rule, above the market.” Thus, according to the expert, refusing to maintain social networks and keeping your profile private may deprive you of the opportunity to get a high position.

Ksenia Stepanova, head of corporate culture and internal communications at hh.ru, confirms the growing importance of social networks in employment. According to her data, only 16% of companies have no practice of checking candidate profiles at all. Moreover, special attention is paid to the personal pages of applicants for leadership positions. “It’s important to remember that too much activity on social networks can also scare off an employer, since he may have doubts that you have time to complete tasks,” says the expert. “Not everyone should create a “personal brand” in the media – For some professions, publicity can only do harm, and secrecy as a communication style can give more information about you than a lot of comments and photographs.”

Ms. Stepanova also recalled that “when looking for a job, not only the employer chooses you, but you also choose the employer,” so it would also be useful for job seekers to study “how the company positions itself on social networks, how potential colleagues respond to it.”

Researchers in the survey found that after starting work in a new team, 47% of employees created accounts for personal use, which are available only to relatives and friends. 21% of respondents did this after colleagues began discussing their personal life or hobbies. 62% of respondents admitted that they themselves discussed information about a colleague from his profile.

“Social networks can safely be called part of a person’s personal space,” notes Associate Professor of the basic department of the Charitable Foundation for Support of Educational Programs “Captains” of REU. G.V. Plekhanova Tatyana Zakharova. “Therefore, adding yourself as a friend and trying to see classified information is comparable to asking to visit your colleagues.” Ms. Zakharova believes that any information posted on social networks must be approached consciously, because “everything that is online can become available at any time, including to those with whom you would not like to share it.”

Before starting a job search, according to the expert, you should evaluate your profile and understand “what you came from” so that information about your past hobbies does not confuse the employer.

Professor of the Gazpromtrans Corporate University Andrey Vashchenko notes that social networks can even cause conflict at work, but not because of a discussion of the personal lives of employees. “Now employers, especially in companies where employee time is very valuable, monitor which sites subordinates visit during working hours,” explains the expert. “And if, instead of performing professional duties, a person sits on social networks, this raises questions and dissatisfaction.” Mr. Vashchenko notes that this practice is not widespread, but colleagues can also complain to management about an employee’s aimless use of social networks. “Nevertheless, personal pages of employees on the Internet, filled out by them outside of working hours, can very rarely lead to problems at work, and bosses are of little interest in this,” he concluded.

Polina Yachmennikova