Over the last few years, the exponential spread of social media for both professional and personal use has forced many transportation companies to better define the role of these sites within their organizations.
Many employers in the transportation industry are finding social media to be a useful tool in recruiting, since social media can be an effective way to target job applicants with specific skill sets valuable for open positions.
From 2012 to 2013, the number of transportation organizations that were using social media for recruiting talent increased by 12.5 percent. This year-over-year trend is likely to continue, given that an additional 7 percent of respondents plan to implement social media into their recruiting program in the future.
HR professionals within the transportation industry are also leveraging social media to help communicate with job applicants during the hiring process.
Beyond Talent Acquisition
Other potential uses for social media include increasing employer branding and awareness, expanding an organization’s network, and conducting background checks.
Source: HireRight 2013 Transportation Spotlight
While social media is becoming a widely accepted tool for talent acquisition within the transportation industry, it is much less so in the background screening process. Based on HireRight’s findings, only 14 percent of respondents reported using social media for background checks.
This low rate is likely attributable to employers wanting to steer clear of the potential issues associated with the use of social media information for employment screening purposes, including but not limited to the privacy implications, risks of possible discrimination claims, and concerns about information accuracy, among others.
Given these potential issues, many employers who do use social media as part of the employment screening process are well advised, as a best practice, to have a policy and associated guidelines that govern their internal process.
What is somewhat concerning, then, is that only 17 percent of those employers who are using social media as part of their background screening process have such a policy in place.
Far and away, Facebook is the most popular site used by employers in the transportation space for employment screening, with 82 percent incorporating it into their screening process. Google+ (46%) and LinkedIn (36%) were the second and third most popular sites, respectively.
Free Report: Transportation Spotlight
Learn the employment background checking best practices of leading transportation companies by downloading:
HireRight Transportation Spotlight
HireRight
HireRight is a leading provider of on-demand employment background checks, drug and health screening, and electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions that help employers automate, manage and control background screening and related programs.
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