HR Industry News

Candidates falling foul of internet gossip

— 10 April 2007 —

Personal information on the Internet can make or break a candidate’s chances of landing a new job according to a survey of more than 600 HR professionals.

Research has found that one in five employers have used the Internet to search for information about candidates and almost two-thirds said that what they found influenced their recruitment decisions.

A quarter of employers also admitted to rejecting candidates because of the personal information they found about them online.

Reasons for discarding applicants included comments posted on websites such as MySpace that reflected badly on the candidate or did not fit with the employer’s own ethics.

The results have been described as a wake-up call to anyone who has ever posted personal information online as the rise of search engines such as Google means that potential employers are never more than a few clicks away from that information.

However, information found on the web also worked positively for some job applicants as almost 15% of HR managers said their decision to recruit someone was confirmed by positive information found about them online.

As a result, people must manage their internet reputation closely – online information must be tailored to work to their advantage.

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