Social networks put careers at risk, survey finds | EurActiv

Social networks put careers at risk, survey finds | EurActiv: "Social networks put careers at risk, survey finds [de]
Mon, 2010-02-01 06:45

Almost half of European recruiters seek information on potential candidates using online social networks and almost a quarter have rejected candidacies on the basis of their research, according to a survey released for EU Data Protection Day.
Background

A social networking site is a website on which users can post personal information. It resembles a blog, but with the added value of providing tools for developing interaction with other users and filters to determine who has access to the data available.

The main online social networking sites are FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace.

The risks related to naïve usage of these sites, especially for online reputation, have been raised on many occasions. In November 2007, ENISA, the EU agency for network and information security, warned in a special report against so-called 'digital dossier aggregation’, after many cases of career-related negative consequences had been reported (EurActiv 01/11/07).

ENISA - located in Heraklion, Crete - was established as an EU agency in September 2005, in recognition of the increased importance that the EU attaches to communication networks.
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When asked how they collect information about people they plan to hire, 43% of European human resources professionals surveyed reply that they analyse the online reputation of the candidate, mainly through search engines, social networking websites, personal sites and blogs.

In Germany, 59% of recruiters make use of personal data collected on the Internet for the evaluation of a candidate, 47% in the UK, and 23% in France. The EU average is much lower than the US, where 79% of HR experts scan the Web in search of personal information for recruiting purposes."