Social Media Searches

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Hire Smarter with Social Media Background Checks

Social media has become a fundamental way billions of people engage with each other around the world. With social media’s importance in so many people’s lives, it’s not surprising that hiring managers view online content to learn more about their potential hires. Social media checks can provide insights that help employers minimize risk and hire better quality candidates.

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Make Better-Informed Hiring Decisions

Performing in-house online searches increases hiring complexity and introduces the potential for hiring bias associated with viewing prohibited grounds of discrimination, such as religion or disability. Sterling Backcheck’s tech-enabled social media background checks for Canada help employers simplify their hiring workflow and reduce risk while simultaneously promoting a more objective screening process.

Sterling Backcheck leverages advanced technology to examine publicly available online content, including social media and other online sources, for potential misconduct. Sterling’s social media background checks avoid prohibited grounds of discrimination to help reduce bias in hiring decisions.
Our social media background check service can be used across hundreds of languages, to help you more easily achieve your hiring goals and foster a foundation of trust and safety for your entire organization.
Our in-house compliance experts monitor new laws and regulations locally and across the globe to help you keep your program up to date with the changing regulatory environment, enabling you to hire anywhere with confidence.

The Social Media Imperative

With over 60% of the global population on social media, it’s become a norm for hiring managers to use search engines to perform in-house online content review to identify red flags and learn more about their candidates. However, this practice can lead to inconsistent and potentially biased hiring processes.
Stats of social media lookup
0%
Of hiring managers have passed on candidates due to information found online
0%
Admit to using social media to find answers to illegal interview questions, increasing company risk
0%
Use social media to screen candidates and determine if they are a good cultural fit, introducing the potential for bias

Source: ResumeBuilder.com

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Scalable Social Media Options

Our social media screening options provide insight into potential employee or candidate misconduct online. Our checks allow you to:

  • Analyze up to seven years of history of a candidate or employee’s posts, likes, comments, reposts, memes, and images on common social media sources.
  • Search for content related to the candidate or employee in news and webpage online sources.
  • Review reports flagging relevant content with high confidence levels from pre- identified behavioral categories.
  • Choose from options to best support your business needs.

Seamless Social Media Screening

Our background check for social media layers innovative advanced automation with human analysis, providing hiring managers with an essential tool to streamline the recruitment process.

Search. Advanced automations review publicly available social media posts and online content to help gain valuable information about a candidate’s social behaviour. What shows up on a social media background check can vary based on the available data.

Match. We then carefully authenticate discovered content to help increase identification accuracy so you can hire more confidently.

Report. Delivered to the Client Hub in just 1 – 2 days1, our streamlined social media reports contain flagged content that may present a workplace concern for your review.

1 Sterling Corporate Stats, 2023

Frequently Asked Questions

A social media background check involves aggregating data from online social platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.) to highlight relevant information about a candidate’s character and general suitability.

As part of the social media background check, Sterling uses technology to apply fair and consistent criteria across the board. Sterling’s evaluation targets up to seven years of a candidate or employee’s public posts, likes, comments, reposts, memes and images on six common social media sources, as well as relevant news and webpage articles. Additionally, we authenticate profiles and post data to help confirm the information matches each candidate through a combination of advanced technology and human analysis. Our reports are completed in a matter of hours and flag job-relevant content for your consideration in the hiring process.

Unlike traditional employment background checks, social media checks primarily focus
on searching for publicly available information about potential hires. By default, the
search focuses on the following categories:

  • Hate speech
  • Narcotics
  • Obscene language
  • Political speech
  • Self-harm
  • Sexual impropriety
  • Terrorism/extremism
  • Threat of violence
  • Toxic language
  • Violent images
  • Drug-related images
  • Explicit/racy images

Employers should request a background check for social media to get insight into potential risky conduct and hire employees who better align with their company’s values. This check reduces liability by proactively exposing possible online misconduct that could harm the company’s reputation, compromise the employee experience, or reduce productivity. Using a third-party’s services is the best practice to reduce potential hiring bias and promote consistent criteria for evaluation.

Get Started with Social Media Screening

A thorough social media background check can be a game changer. Hire smarter and reduce risk by partnering with an industry leader in background screening. Click the option that best describes you.

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