Popular Social Media Employment Websites
How Popular Social Media Employment Websites Discriminate Against Job Seekers
Today, the use of social media employment websites indicates that the online platforms offer employees and companies a new way to interact with each other, which are often referred to as the market screening. However, there are not many implications of such practices in terms of how the information of the job seekers that is available online could have either a negative or positive impact on the decision of the employers towards hiring the most perspective candidate (Joos).
This paper is aimed at detecting the preconditions of job seeker discrimination. Therefore, it is necessary to observe the history of employment discrimination. Besides, the backgrounds of this illegal and unethical practice should be linked to the legislative regulations adopted to decrease employment discrimination.
This paper describes a problem with the discrimination practices against the job seekers, which takes place through the social media employment sites. Even though these social media employment websites currently illustrate a little discriminating practice against the job seekers, today the job applicants face with different ways of pursuing such discrimination in their employment history. Struggling with discrimination in the employment practices poses more issues for the potential employees since there are a growing number of issues people face while getting hired in various companies. The prospects that are interested in particular job offers are faced with different complaints during the process of applying to the particular job, which is indeed followed by different kinds of discrimination. Despite the fact that many job seekers manage to find jobs, the vast majority of them are still left behind due to the social implications with their employers.
For example, there are many studies, such as the Carnegie Mellon University, on the fake resumes and social media profiles that were created in order to determine the perceptions of employers towards hiring different prospects. The findings of this and many similar research studies indicate that around ten percent or one-third of the companies in the United States prefers to search for the information on the potential job candidates across the social media profiles. The studies also confirm that the following practice takes place in the beginning of the recruiting process when the potential employees are not even invited to the personal interviews with the employers. The research findings claim that people with the religious perceptions different from the needs of the company are less likely to get employed. The research outcomes also indicate that the job seekers of different ethnic groups are less likely to get hired even if they are more qualified for the particular job position. For instance, the Christians are invited to the interviews more often compared to the Muslims, as well as they are employed more often compared to the employees with different religious beliefs (Boyd & Ellison).
It is considered that the social media employment websites use the information from the social media in order to observe private information about the job seekers. The workers also acknowledge that they use the social media employment sites to examine personal information on the job seekers through the social media profiles. Based on the statistical studies, approximately ten percent of the recruiters utilize the data from the most popular social media channels to make the hiring decisions towards employing the prospective job seekers for the particular job openings. It is also important to acknowledge that one third of the employers seek information about the job seekers before inviting them to the personal interviews and finally making their hiring decisions. Overall, the utilization of such data by the companies refers to the privacy of the social media users at the most prevalent social media channels.
It is considered that the companies utilize social media to discriminate against the job seekers. This discrimination has a similar illustration across the most popular social media employment sites. In fact, the information that the employers take from the social media channels could become the foundation for suit under the employment laws and regulations. Nevertheless, this information is not perceived as the warning for the employers of many human resources companies all over the world. The statistics also indicate that only seven percent of the job seekers finally get employed after the examination of the information found on the social media sites. The major implication for any kind of discrimination is gender, different age groups, nationalities, and religious perceptions of the potential job candidates. As a result, it is believed that the continued discrimination against the job seekers could lead to the law-suits of these companies. Consequently, it could have many negative consequences for the companies that use private information to make the employment decisions. Overall, there is no need to consider all the information posted on the social media sources in the process of hiring the job applicants. All the same, a definite level of discrimination against the job seekers still continues to develop in the target market with respect to the issues concerning the harassment and diversity in the workplace. Ultimately, this research should serve as a basis for protecting the job seekers against any means of discrimination. It is also considered that such studies will help to avoid any kind of harassment and / or liability in the employment practices.
Brief History of Social Media Employment Websites
The founder of the social media employment is the online career center that was established as the non-profit organization with the access of around forty companies. It was developed to create the opportunity for the job seekers to publicize their resumes for the recruiters on the number of available job openings. The installment of the job listing companies was achieved as a result of NetStart Inc. that sold software to allow the companies to provide their openings online. It also allowed managing the email correspondence under the name of a specific company. Consequently, this company was renamed to CareerBuilder, which continued to expand its operations due to the high demand for such software services. The next to the social media employment was managed with the establishment of the service presented by the CareerPath Company, which featured the list of employers in the most reputable newspapers online, such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. The employment through the websites was improved after the creation of the broader and less technical website in 1998 named Hotjobs.com. The next challenge of the online employment was presented with Monster.com in 1999, which proposed various job offers, including both low and high-paying jobs. The other step to the social media employment was the establishment of CareerMosaic and number one employment site called Jobsonline.com that left both Monster.com and Hotjobs.com behind (Searle).
The social media employment websites are those sites that are used merely to help employers find the highly qualified employees for their open job positions. The idea is to provide the job seekers with greater opportunities to build their careers online. It also corresponds to the options of posting the job requirements and other related information for the job seekers through the job boards. As a rule, the social media employment websites offer numerous reviews on different jobs, including the description of the companies. The idea of such social media employment websites is to fill in the application for a particular job, as well as to be able to submit the resumes online. It also corresponds to the difference in the opportunities for the social media employment sites and the job boards (Breaugh).
In particular, the social media employment sites require users to communicate directly with the representatives of the social media channels, whereas the job boards simply provide the information on the job offers through the service of posting job descriptions and other relevant data for the job seekers. Hence, the use of the social media employment websites provides both the companies and job applicants to build special networks to communicate effectively with each other. The social media channels commonly refer to the use of LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter as the most popular social media employment websites. The other social media employment websites are also used by the vast majority of the job seekers, such as Instagram, Visual CV, Upwork (former oDesk), E-lance, and even Mashable (Shury).
LinkedIn is one of many popular social media employment websites that are used to search for the job offers. It provides the job seekers with the opportunities to effectively connect with other people after reviewing their profile information while sending the application form directly to the employer. The LinkedIn platform makes it comfortable to use this social media employment website for the reason of its professional approach to details. It is considered that by using LinkedIn, both companies and job seekers could establish their online presence in the best possible ways. LinkedIn is also considered the combination of the job market and social network as a program to allow both companies and job applicants to reveal outstanding opportunities to find the perfect match for both parties. LinkedIn also helps large businesses to manage business deals and even create ventures. Meanwhile, it is merely used by the job seekers to make connections with the employers and send their resumes to the companies (Davison, Maraist, Hamilton & Bing).
The use of LinkedIn allows companies to review the working performance of the job candidates and be sure to rely on the information published online since all the resources are highly reputable. At the same time, it is convenient for both the employers and employees to communicate with each other as in other popular social media channels. This is the reason why many companies today prefer to search for the job candidates through the LinkedIn profiles instead of placing the job position on the other job boards. LinkedIn allows the companies to check whether they could apply for the job opening based on the information in the profiles of people. At the same time, the job seekers could improve their chances to get hired in a highly reputable company by participating in the public discussions and answering questions in the topic of interest. It is one of the best ways to improve the visibility of the job candidates in this social media employment website (Brown & Vaughn).
In addition, the convenience of the LinkedIn social media channel is in its options for finding the open positions at the particular companies. It also automatically notifies both job seekers and employers in case there is a new connection. In fact, this social media employment website comprises the profiles of more than three hundred million users in twenty different languages all over the world. Thus, the companies can scan the profiles of the most successful candidates and invite them for the personal interviews depending on the information provided in the online profiles. In addition, as a social media network, LinkedIn allows people to connect with other people for even greater opportunities. Overall, every minute spent in the LinkedIn social media employment website is counted for both companies and job seekers (Davison, Maraist & Bing).
Facebook is another professional social media employment website that is used as the networking service. Facebook could also be used as the social media platform for the job search. In fact, there are several ways to find a job using Facebook social media employment website. On the one hand, it is needed to visit the Facebook marketplace that contains the list of job offers, as well as many opportunities for the professional networking. In addition, there are many other sections, such as the listings of “For sale” and “Items wanted”, which is also rather convenient. Facebook allows the job seekers to search for the job position and preview the item listed in the marketplace as well as to message to various companies, thus showing personal interest in the particular job opening. After the particular job opening is found, it is possible to message the employer directly using the inbuilt messaging system (Clark & Roberts).
On the other hand, the job seekers could find a job by joining groups and fun pages of the companies or people with similar professional interests for networking. It is also possible to make friends with the people of similar interests or with members of the mutual public groups. Thus, the use of Facebook offers many different job opportunities for both companies and job seekers. Facebook is also considered a convenient tool for both companies and job seekers since it allows sharing articles and media, including audio, video, and photos. However, it is important to be careful with the images shared for the public visibility since it could have a negative impact on the opportunity to get hired by the reputable companies. Facebook also offers forum services that are used to conduct business deals worldwide as a result of a billion user list. In fact, the acquaintances on Facebook could be used as additional recommendations for the employers while searching for the job offer (Bohnert & Ross).
.svg)
Thus, the Facebook social media channel is considered the best match for the personal network and a professional social media employment website. Consequently, the job seekers need to consider in what way they continue using Facebook either by making it a social media tool or taking advantage of its broad professional networking services that could be used to find a better job. Therefore, in case the job seekers tend to keep their profiles strictly professional, they need to consider the personal information to place as not to share the data that could be used by the employers in the negative perspective. It is also convenient for the job seekers in terms of hiding the profile content for the friends only, which is a common practice for keeping personal information private and far from the recruiters (Zielinski).
Overall, the Facebook social media employment site is an excellent tool to create a better opinion of the job applicants and demonstrate it to the perspective human resource managers. Hence, it is highly important to monitor the content to avoid sharing the content, which could have a negative impact on the hiring decisions of the recruiters. Therefore, it makes sense to make the Facebook profile simple for the professional purposes. The idea is to remove unnecessary add-ons, imagery, posts, etc. that are irrelevant to the career opportunities. At the same time, the friends on Facebook could be the resource for finding a better job and communicating with the recruiters more effectively online (Debatin, Lovejoy, Horn & Hughes).
Twitter is one more social media employment website that is used for the job searching, networking and even microblogging. In addition, it takes advantage of the instant messaging service, including the ability to send SMS or use a web interface. Twitter is an open-ended product that is used by people all over the world in many different ways, including the advertisement and job search. Twitter also takes advantage of the social networking solutions, such as posting “tweets” or short messages of less than a hundred and fifty characters. Twitter is used by the job seekers and companies for a great variety of reasons, including the placement of special offers, sales, and job openings (Tong, Duffy, Cross, Tsung & Yen).
Overall, Twitter is a great social media employment website that has many job opportunities. For example, the job seekers could register accounts and connect with the companies that place interesting job offers. The job seekers could grab the attention of the employers by following the tweets of different companies and commenting on the interesting posts or job openings. At the same time, the job seekers could take advantage of the TwitJobSearch.com resource that is created especially for them. It is a specific search engine aimed at the twitter-related job opportunities that could be located by using keywords. Consequently, by taking advantage of the tweets, the companies and job seekers could join the conversations of each other, which is the best match for both parties. The discussion on the Twitter profiles allows the companies to offer numerous job openings, as well as it allows the job seekers to submit their resumes in the
LinkedIn profile (Parry & Tyson).
The idea is not to scan the Twitter profiles in search for the best job candidate but to engage the communication with the potential employees in order to get a link to the extended information on the professional characteristics of the job applicant. After such links are shared, the companies can check the Twitter profiles more thoroughly to find the best candidate for the job openings. It is also possible to participate in the discussions on Twitter based on the topic, which is the most specific for the potential job offer. As a result, such actions of the job seekers could be helpful to find the best company to work for. It will also allow the companies to find the knowledgeable professional. Therefore, the job seekers should have a Twitter account since the vast majority of recruiters use it search for the best candidates by using keywords in the bios information. It also makes sense to post a link to the LinkedIn profiles and / or online resumes so that the recruiters could have one more website to investigate the job candidates in more detail by following the information posted on the Twitter profile (Davison, Maraist, Hamilton & Bing).
Instagram is a modern way to create the website presence by establishing the personal brand in the public profile. It could be used by the recruiters to demonstrate the area of expertise and need in certain skills. At the same time, Instagram could be used by the job seekers in terms of creating a personal brand and illustrating the list of skills that are marketable over the social media employment websites. Overall, the use of Instagram is a visual representation tool that allows both parties to demonstrate their value and a number of benefits online (Shury).
VisualCV
VisualCV is a form of the social media employment website that positions the importance of the particular job seekers based on one’s personal branding in a job search. The idea is that instead of placing a traditional resume, the job seekers could create personal branded websites with all the types of media such as video, audio, imagery, and text for the sample works, testimonials, references, and presentations. Thus, the VisualCV allows the job seekers not only to stand out from the crowd, but also to demonstrate the value that could be added to the particular company. It could not be compared with a traditional resume that uses only static text and could not be shared effectively as the medium for either public or private content for the recruiters. The use of VisualCV allows the job seekers to save their resumes as PDF files and URLs simultaneously. Thus, it defines such job seekers as extraordinary and having more aptitude to apply for the open job positions. Consequently, the job seekers can search for the interesting jobs online and, when applying for the opening, provide the link directly to VisualCV, which is rather convenient for both the companies and job applications as a whole (Davison, Maraist, Hamilton & Bing).
Upwork
The Upworkor, which is the former oDesk, is a different social media employment website that has a powerful online staffing platform to manage the partnership of both parties in the global marketplace. This is considered to be a challenging option for many job seekers who are looking for the best social media employment websites in search for a better online job. It takes advantage of the dashboard that allows both companies and job seekers to organize their work effectively in one social media platform. In addition, Upwork offers different tools, such as testing the skills of the job seekers, thus allowing the companies to evaluate their personal qualities and professional qualifications. It is also possible to learn new skills and gain certifications in various spheres of interest for both the companies and job seekers. At the same time, it allows posting a resume with different media that demonstrates the overall expertise of the job seekers based on their profiles. Besides, it offers internal blog services to help both parties find each other. On the one hand, it helps the job seekers to find the best job opening by using different tips posted on the blog. On the other hand, it allows the companies to use various tools to evaluate the profiles of the job seekers such as personal profile information that is followed with the high-resolution picture and biography of the job seekers (Zielinski).
E-lance
E-lance is an alternative social media employment website that has similar opportunities as Upwork. In fact, the companies and employers could take advantage of this source absolutely free of charge. However, they pay for the completed work on the hourly and / or project basis. At the same time, the job seekers are charged a small fee from the total sum of money paid for every job, which is fair for both parties. E-lance is one of the social media employment websites that take advantage of social media marketing as a tool of an integrated marketing communication between the job seekers and the companies. It is also important to acknowledge that the employers have more advantages compared to the employees during the process of hiring. Nevertheless, it makes a great sense using this social media employment website as a source of job for the freelancers since it is used by more than five hundred thousand companies and employs more than two million of the registered job seekers (Davison, Maraist & Bing).
Mashable
Mashable is a website that publishes news articles on the technology and social media. It makes sense to include Mashable in the list of the social media employment websites since it uses a great job board with a leading selection of social media job openings in the target markets. This social media employment website has loyal followers, which corresponds to the opportunity for the job seekers to pursue many elite job offers that are not placed on any other social media employment website. It is also important to acknowledge that The Time labeled Mashableas “one of the twenty-five best blogs of all time”. In all, pursuing a new job path is difficult enough for many job seekers; however, it is definitely worth trying by the job seekers in terms of finding a completely different job that offers more challenging opportunities compared to the traditional job offers. However, the nature of such employment requires the job seekers to have logical abilities and all the needed skills to succeed in the new workplace (Shury).
We are available 24/7 to minimize your study stress!
Risks of Social Media
There are many different risks that refer to the legal implications in terms of using the social media employment websites, in particular, the information on the social media channels as a source for screening personal information of the job seekers. However, the human resource companies should consider the legal rights and freedoms of the job applicants since they are protected from various means of discrimination by the federal anti-discrimination laws. It is important to consider that in case the job opening is advertised merely using one social media employment website, it means that other people are discriminated since they do not have profiles in the particular social media channels (Smith & Rupp).
At the same time, the companies are required to fill in the action plan for the future recruiting of the job seekers so that there were no discrimination issues. It corresponds to the implications of gender, ethnicity, race, certain disabilities, age group, personal identity, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation. The idea is to ensure the companies recruit all the possible candidates for the specific job position. It is important to advertise the job offers using all the possible social media employment websites by means of providing the job seekers with an opportunity to interact directly with the best candidates online. Overall, the companies could have significant problems in case there is at least any information about not hiring a particular job candidate because of the issues related to the implications of gender, ethnicity, race, certain disabilities, age group, personal identity, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation (Davison, Maraist & Bing).
There are also many other risks that the companies face while hiring the candidates using not the portfolios or resumes but the information retrieved from the Internet. Such risks refer to the realization that these categories of the job seekers are protected by the local laws and regulations on the rights and freedoms of these people. According to the latest statistics, around one third of the global companies take advantage of the information share in the social media websites that is projected through the social media employment websites. The findings claim that the hiring decisions are made not based on the particular personal qualities or professional qualifications but on the information found across the social media employment sites. In particular, it refers to the implications of race, gender, religion, and the country of origin. Hence, the violation of the rights and freedoms of every category of the job seekers is at risk of the employment discrimination lawsuit (Chamberlain).
Therefore, in order to keep the process of employment legal, there are certain actions that the employment companies should not do during the process of making their hiring decisions. For example, they should not ask for the access details to the personal profiles of the potential employees in the social media channels. Another example refers to the information that the recruiters should not base their decisions on such as gender, different age groups, nationalities, and religious perceptions. Instead, the hiring practices should be based on the personal qualities and professional qualifications of the job seekers. The goal is to find the perfect match between the job candidates and job requirements. At the same time, the recruiters should be aware of the aspects of personal life that they are not allowed to ask or consider during the process of making the hiring decisions. Finally, the job seekers should have at least a basic understanding about the use of the social media employment sites by the human resource companies. In case needed, they could consult with the employment attorneys about more details (Clark & Roberts).
Privacy
The implications of privacy usually refer to the concerns of anonymity on the social media employment websites. In fact, the vast majority of the job seekers tend to mask their true personal identities. It could be managed by not providing the email or use false names while creating the social media profiles. It also refers to gender, ethnicity, race, certain disabilities, age group, personal identity, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation. This takes place as a result of having different personal issues comprising but not limited to the medical treatment, negative public records, political positions that refer to the number of controversial issues, mental health problems, law enforcement cases, victims of sexual harassment and / or violence of any kind. Overall, the fact of being anonymous is important in order to separate the online personality and offline identity (Maurer & Liu).
Regularly, the users who are involved in the social media employment website activities create social media profiles with false names and email addresses as not to compromise their personal identity. At the same time, it is important to use the social media employment sites through the masked IP addresses. For example, the job seekers could take advantage of the TOR software and regularly delete cookies after visiting the social media employment websites. Nevertheless, it is rather difficult to live different lives at the same time. However, the job seekers could differentiate their personal information with the updates of social statues, memberships in various groups of interests, personal gallery, and other aspects of concern. In any case, it has been proven that even the false and anonymous information on the social media employment websites will refer to a particular person and even a group of people (Maurer & Liu).
Nevertheless, different recruiters consider different information from the social media employment websites while making their human resources decisions. It usually takes time before the interview takes place for the particular job seekers. However, the vast majority of the recruiters consider the inappropriate behavior, personal character and unprofessionalism every time they review the content of the social media employment websites. In addition, they consider sharing photos that could have a negative impact on the personal identity of the job seeker, such as being drunk and / or had a quarrel with their former employer and currently searching for a different job. It is important to be careful with the thoughts and ideas that are being posted as it could result in the negative consequences from the position of the job offered by different companies, which could simply be declined (Singh & Finn).
Therefore, the job seekers need to carefully consider the private information they share on their social media sites minding that it could be checked by the potential employers during the process of making decisions. It is, thus, hugely important not to pose discrimination against the job seekers in case they share sensual private information that could be accessible through the social media employment sties. The fact is that the job seekers has to be careful with the information they post across their social media accounts since it could be viewed by the recruiters during the process of making their hiring decisions (Breaugh & Starke).
However, it should also be acknowledged that while checking this information, the recruiters are mostly concerned to find more positive data than negative one. It is also significant to consider that the proportions of the job seekers who were hired on the basis of the content on the social media websites, which is almost similar to those candidates who were rejected by the recruiters. As a result, the recruiters believe that those job seekers who managed to establish a professional personal identity in the social media websites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, have strong marketable skills, which is more than enough to get employed. At the same time, it is found that being informal in the social media could have a negative impact on the potential employment. This is the point of discussion in terms of how to avoid the gap between the public and personal life of the job seekers while not being discriminated due to the proper legislation to prevent such cases (Carlson, Connerley & Mecham).
The major concern is the ways to predict the discrimination of any kind and never allow it to take place in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, certain disabilities, age group, personal identity, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation. Overall, it is important so that all the job seekers could have favorable changes of getting employed similarly in different categories. It is also important to think about the area of personal life that should be hidden from the potential employers. It makes sense at least until the job seekers are confident of the sphere of employment they are interested in. Overall, those job seekers who keep their social media profiles entirely for their future employment definitely have more advantages over others (Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman & Witty).
Benefits of Using Social Media Employment Websites
The benefits of the social media employment websites are drastic with respect to the number of opportunities to search for the needed talents online. However, it could be challenging for the employers to consider which social media channels should be considered during the process of making the hiring decisions. Today, the social media employment websites hold an advantageous position among the other sources of talents, such as the job boards, human resource agencies, referrals, and other relevant sources. It has become so important as a result of a transformation from the face-to-face communication to the online interactions of different people. It is especially significant in the human resources world since the job seekers and potential employers communicate through the use of tweets, likes, and other attributes of the social media channels (Martin, Reddington & Kneafsey).
Nevertheless, there are many benefits of using social media employment sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in particular. Overall, it is important to remember that the top hundred companies that take advantage of the information shared across the social media profiles have a strong impact on the online personal identity of the job seekers. It also corresponds to various issues that could have problems for the job candidates based on the content they share online. Today, the companies, such as Deloitte, could take advantage of the social media employment websites, whereas the other companies are still striving to solve their issues in terms of communication, security issues, and loss of productivity in the workplace (Malita, Badescu & Dabu).
One of the most crucial benefits of using social media employment websites is the ability of the companies to locate the highly knowledgeable, talented and experienced employees. It could be achieved by means of using the social media channels in terms of searching for the best candidates for the particular job positions. In this case, the job seekers have the advantage of findings the best employment offer, whereas the companies could employ workers with high expertise in the sphere of interest. At the same time, the use of the social media employment websites allows the companies to unleash the innovative thinking and creativity when searching for the right employees (Kluemper & Rosen).
As a result, the companies that can effectively operate with the data are also capable of finding the best job candidates using the social media employment websites. It does not only increase the wage levels of their employees, but also their annual revenues in the target markets. It could be achieved by managing the online resources more accurately in terms of the long-term partnerships (Kaplan & Haenlein).
The ability to operate effectively with the information taken from the social media employment websites allows the companies to communicate more efficiently with the job candidates. Consequently, it leads to the increased speed of work and overall agility of the company. From the position of the job seekers, such ways to communicate with them strengthen the corporate culture by means of building strong networking relationships in advance. It also corresponds to the reduction of cost of employment for the companies and increases the future job performance of the job seekers. Overall, the effective use of the social media employment websites helps the job seekers and companies to eliminate pointless paperwork, which also leads to the win-win situation for both parties (Jones & Behling).
In addition, the efficient use of the social media employment websites helps the companies and employees to eliminate the barriers that exist during the process of communication. It makes sense even with respect to the geographical location of the departments, including the outsourced companies. At the same time, the use of the social media employment websites is convenient for the job seekers since it could be utilized through the use of the mobile and / or tablet devices. As a result, the employees and companies could interact at any time and everywhere around the globe. Overall, the use of the social media employment websites allows the companies to recruit merely the top talents in the target niche. In addition, the companies and job seekers are able to communicate their needs with a clear purpose, which also helps to reinforce the personal needs and values of both parties. Ultimately, the use of the social media employment websites allows both companies and job seekers to pursue unlimited opportunities of employment in the sphere of interest (Broughton, Higgins, Hicks & Cox).
Social Media Use by the Employment Websites
Although there are many benefits of using the social media employment websites, there are still many implications for the illegal discrimination of the job seekers. It takes place since the employers take advantage of the social media employment websites in terms of screening them in search for the top talents. At the same time, the information location on the profiles of employees across the social media sites is crucial in terms of being accepted or rejected by the potential employers. In fact, the social media is used by approximately one third of the companies globally in terms of searching for the best personal identities and highly skilled employees for the most reputable job offers. The use of the social media employment websites, such as the LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, turn out to be much easier and cheaper in terms of making the hiring decisions. Overall, there are billions of users who spend around twelve hours every day browsing for the better place of employment (Benson, Filippaios & Morgan).
At the same time, the use of the social media employment websites allows the companies to take advantage of the personalities of the potential employees with respect to the content shared across the social media channels. Hence, the idea is not only to review the resumes of the job seekers, but also to reflect on the implications of the working styles before inviting them to the interviews. Nevertheless, despite the number of benefits for both the recruiters and employers, there are still many implications of risk that are posed towards the companies that illegally pursue personal information of the job seekers while making their hiring decisions. However, there are many negative implications for both parties in terms of not managing the shared information properly and thus providing the reasons for discrimination of the job seekers (BIS).
History of Employment and Jobseeker Discrimination
As it is known, employers strive to lessen business risks that may be stipulated by the workforce. This endeavor deteriorates the topical social issue of employment discrimination. Mostly, the job seeker discrimination occurs on the basis of medical records (or age), criminal records, and credit records of the job applicants. Given these peculiarities, it is appropriate to hypothesize that the historical background, such as economic and social trends, sharpens the employment discrimination.
Inter-social Conflicts and Criminal Records
To begin with, it is necessary to state that the phenomenon of job seeker discrimination is not the new issue; however, its reasons change within the time. For instance, it is reported that 1980s and 90s the US government struggled to mitigate race-based employment discrimination (Cornell University Law School, n. d.). In contrast, today’s job applicants are not stereotyped according to their skin color or ethnicity. Nevertheless, the negative implication of inter-racial, religious, ethnic conflicts remains topical. Specifically, such confrontation resulted in the increase of criminal records in the American community. Consider the statistics, it is identified that “about one in three adults now has a criminal history record” (U.S. Department of Labor). Under such conditions, employers attempt to protect themselves from improper workers by requiring criminal records check. What makes the things even worse is that the applicants with criminal history often experience employment discrimination. To stop this trend, National Employment Law Project was launched at a state level. Its aim is to ensure that “people with convictions have a fair chance to work”(National Employment Law Project). The legislative framework of this movement that should stop job seeker discrimination is the Bill of Rights (1791), which became the basis of the US Constitution. It prohibits the deprivation of equal rights according to one’s physical or personal characteristics. In particular, these are physical or mental health conditions that are not directly related to job responsibilities and, thus, can not intervene with successful working process. It is necessary to mention that this law prohibits requiring medical records before actual employment and, an applicant cannot be denied a job position in a case if his/her health issues are compatible with the required working duties (Cornell University Law School, n. d.). Nonetheless, the new times beget new kinds of discrimination. In this regard, a novelty of the 21st century is a pre-employment credit check.
Pre-Employment Credit Checks
It is the new kind of employment discrimination that is based on one’s ability to handle economic affairs under the circumstances of global crisis and other economic harassments. Scrutinizing this situation, one should acknowledge that the accessibility of the corresponding records is facilitated by the development of information technologies that gained speed in the 21 century. Fortunately, for job applicants, this information is considered to be private and, thus, protected by law. To stop this tendency was adopted a law that “prohibits employers from discriminating based on a job seeker or employee’s credit history” (Illinois Government News Network).
Considering the above-mentioned, one can rightfully conclude that job seeker discrimination is being seriously addressed in the contemporary world. Besides, it is necessary to point out that the preconditions of employment discrimination are defined by the corresponding time periods and comply with the increase of this negative tendency in the modern world of information technologies and neo-liberalism. Therefore, it is possible to presume that, in the future, the necessity of enterprises to compete and survive as well as development of technological progress will result in the new forms of employment discrimination.