Using Facebook to screen job applicants - what are the pros & cons?

I see this question a lot. I still fail to understand what value you will find about someone on facebook. Unless you are looking to answer the illegal hiring questions about how many children they have, what their relationship status is, if they have any medical issues they are talking about with their friends, whether they play online games and smoke pot.

If these are the questions you are seeking to answer then I suppose facebook is the place you should spend all your time.

I disagree. For any potential hire, I believe a social media search is warranted. It is very relavant indeed. If you hold value in recommendations and endorsements from Linked-in, you must also hold value in items that you find questionable. Caution - states are developing positions on this issue. Do review any applicable legislative position, prior to any documented denial of employment for reasons associated with what you find posted.

I agree, Regis. One of the most difficult hiring decisions - and one which is routinely flunked - is hiring to culture fit. Social media allows a much more well-rounded picture of potential candidates than a paper resume does.

Even Spencer Stuart has ceased collecting resumes and is using Linkedin as a sourcing tool for reviewing candidate's backgrounds / profiles. That should send a huge message about the social media trend in hiring.

I think a potential con is who their friends are. I do not have Facebook, so I do not have this issue on Facebook, but my wife has "friends" that she doesn't know too well that post things that are not worthy of reading. "Friends" on Facebook should not be used to determine the type of person the potential candidate is. On Twitter you can choose who you follow, but not who follows you, unless you're privacy setting are set up that way. Facebook is different in that whoever you declare as friend, is considered a "friend".

Twitter can much more revealing. But is not used as much as Facebook.

I would add to differentiate between B2B and B2C social media. To Cindy's point linkedin is invaluable for B2B; I see Facebook from as B2C / retail social media ...

Using Facebook for screening job applicants is only setting your company up for EEOC and discrimination complaints. You are expanding the pool of non-objective information to base your decision on. It won't matter if you actually used the information from Facebook in your decison making process. The simple fact that it is there for you to see is enough to start trouble if you are found to be viewing FB for the hiring process. You have age, martial status, immigration status (possibly), sexual orientation (possibly), religious views (possibly). These are land mines waiting to explode and you don't even need to step on them to have them go off. If you are using LinkedIn, your HR department should be scrubbing any non-relevant information from the profile before giving this to the hiring manager / interviewer. There are so many other legal ways to screen for cultual fit. FB an LinkedIn are lazy and dangerous ways to take.