Dive Brief:

• More than one third of employers (35%) say they are less likely to interview job candidates if they are unable to find information about that person online, according to CareerBuilder’s annual social media recruitment survey. 
• The national survey was conducted on behalf of CareerBuilder by Harris Poll between February 11 and March 6, 2015 and included a representative sample of more than 2,000 full-time, U.S. hiring and human resources managers across industries and company sizes.
• 52% of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, up significantly from 43% last year and 39% in 2013. Additionally, 51% of hiring managers use search engines to research candidate and 35% of employers who screen via social networks have requested to “friend” or follow candidates that have private accounts. Of that group, 80% say they’ve been granted permission.

Dive Insight:

Employers are warning up to social media as a recruiting resource.

Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder, points out that most recruiters aren’t intentionally looking for negatives. Six in ten, in fact, are “looking for information that supports their qualifications for the job,” according to the survey.

“Researching candidates via social media and other online sources has transformed from an emerging trend to a staple of online recruitment,” Haefner says. “In a competitive job market, recruiters are looking for all the information they can find that might help them make decisions.”