Respect job seekers privacy on social networking sites, reports People Management magazine

Using social networking websites such as Facebook to research job candidates is the equivalent of going into somebodyís house and searching through their cupboards, a leading HR director has said in an interview with People Management, the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Enterprise Rent-A-Carís HR director for Europe, Donna Miller, says that information on sites including Facebook and MySpace is personal and not appropriate for recruiters to use.

The popularity of such sites has grown dramatically over the past year, with Facebook now boasting over 3.5 million users in the UK, compared with 500,000 in October 2006.

I think a lot of students choose to use these sites to meet people and to share pictures with friends and itís certainly not a way that people look for jobs, says Miller. They go to specific recruitment sites for that.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car introduced a company-wide policy preventing recruiters and other employees from accessing the sites last year, following consultation with staff. Existing checks on the professional areas of a candidate's background were seen to be sufficient.



Miller says in People Management that the policy is also an extra safeguard against discrimination. While I agree that everything you put up on the internet is in the public domain and everyone should be careful, I don't feel it is appropriate for recruiters to look at all of it, she says.

Rima Evans, managing editor of People Management, adds: ìAs the popularity of social networking sites has increased significantly in the last six months, so has their impact on the workplace. But employers who are thinking of ëcyber-vettingí need to think carefully because they risk basing a recruitment decision on irrelevant information and missing out on talent as well as falling foul of the law.

ìMonitoring existing staff also needs careful consideration not least because of the legal implications. But CIPD research also shows that employees are much more likely to be dissatisfied and under stress if they are heavily monitored.î