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Abstract
The use of social media as a recruitment tool throws up some opportunities and challenges for employers. Social media potentially offers speed, efficiency and the ability to target and attract specific, particularly apposite candidates in the recruitment process. It can provide a useful additional source of information on potential job candidates, especially since some data (at the personal as well as the professional level) may not be generated for the purpose of recruitment, and therefore may provide candid supplementary information on the applicant. For candidates it potentially offers multiple sources of information about the employer and the possibility of contact with existing employees to gain a more realistic job preview. However, there are a number of issues that need to be considered. Firstly, there are ethical questions of privacy and the extent to which it is appropriate and relevant for employers to seek information about workers’ private lives. A US survey found that the most common reasons for not short listing and rejecting candidates were based on ‘lifestyle’ rather than employment-related information. For example, 35 per cent of those surveyed said that they found material on SNSs that caused them not to hire a job candidate; social media postings that included 'provocative or inappropriate' photographs or information were cited by 53 per cent of HR managers as a reason to turn down an employee. This paper will focus on recruitment sites impact on job selection.