Can Candidate Screening Go Too Far?

There is nothing easy about screening candidates.  

​Mishires are costly in many ways.  We want to know all we can about a candidate because we think that's how we make the best decision.  More is better, right?  And with so much information at our fingertips thanks to the Internet, it is quite easy to learn a lot about someone.  You can see photos of them on Facebook, read Facebook posts, see their Twitter feed, Google them and learn what organizations they are part of and much more.  But does all of this go too far?

While the interest in more and more information is understandable, it does not equate to a better hire. It equates to noise, and potentially damaging noise at that. Damaging? Yes, because through online research you are likely gathering information that is not relevant to job performance and even information that puts you at risk of being accused of discrimination. (See this January 2014 article from Scientific American about a study on this.)

Often, employers are digging around for this additional information online because they lack clarity about what a person in a role needs to deliver, and they lack the structures and skills to evaluate a candidate's likelihood of success.  Understandably, this leads to doubt and insecurity when evaluating candidates. And this then leads to grasping for all the information one can get (and information online is just so easy) in order to appease the feeling of doubt.

---

If you are in the habit of screening candidates online, here are my suggestions:

• Clarify - Improve the clarity about what success in a position will look like and what is critical in order to achieve success. You likely can go another layer or two deeper with the defining of what you need someone in this role to achieve.
• Strategize - Establish screening strategies that align with evaluating whether candidates can likely be successful. This may include selective use of assessments, structured interviews, work sample submissions, reference check, etc. that all go back to whether or not the candidate is likely to achieve success in your role.
• Use experts - As part of your screening process, make sure you use a smart background checking service that gives you appropriate, accurate information. A "smart" services provides wise counsel on what information is appropriate given the position and has mechanisms in place to deal with the plethora of inaccurate data that exists.
• Go third-party - If you can't sleep without the online research being done on a candidate, use an outside provider like Barada Associates to conduct the review. A quality third-party specialist will only report to you relevant, non-discriminatory information.

Talent is your #1 asset, so acquiring talent is one of the most important business activities. Trends and tools related to a strong hiring processes change rapidly, so if you don't have someone internal who is maintaining expert knowledge about hiring and using that knowledge to refine your systems, make the investment to bring in someone from the outside. The dollars you spend likely will quickly be recouped through more successful selection and you will lessen your risk exposure by eliminating risky selection practices.