FollowSocial Media background checks are here to stay, approved by the FTC and increasingly adopted by corporations as a way to screen applicants. The good news is that you need to be a pretty big jerk to flunk one.
A social media background check is a little more sophisticated that checking your Facebook account, but not much. Basically, after you apply for a job at a company, the company–with your permission–hires another company to check you out on the web.
Having the third company check you out on the web is an important part of the process. Employers can’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, age, sexual orientation and so forth. But if the company does the background check on the web itself, that photo of you with your church group marching in the Gay Pride parade is going to put them in a seriously bad position. If they don’t hire you, you can claim it’s because of that picture.
