Can employers check your social media? Yes, they can. Employers worldwide are using social media as a valuable tool for sourcing, validating and recruiting prospective candidates. A thorough social media background check is now one of the most valuable tools available to UK employers hiring in a digital-first market.
Alongside employment history, education and criminal background checks, social media employment screening provides additional peace of mind as long as it is carried out in a controlled and legal manner. Our social media vetting service has been designed to deliver exactly this - structured, compliant and defensible.
With effective social media screening services, organisations can increase their productivity and efficiency with recruitment, build their brand and establish a presence to target top-tier candidates with the right skill sets.
What is Social Media Screening?
Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are valuable resources for identifying potential candidates for your vacancies. They also make great platforms for communicating with and recruiting applicants to fill positions within your organisation.
Frequently, employers experience difficulties in carrying out social media checks on a prospective candidate, which is a step further than sourcing and shortlisting them.
We screen prospective applicants’ social media profiles and online presence, objectively and legally. We only carry out social media background checks for our clients’ employment and reputation-related business risks. With thorough, cohesive, structured and legal social media screening, our clients remain protected from unnecessary exposure to potential risks, which, in turn, helps them assess the candidate’s suitability and potential for the role.
Social Media Background Check vs Social Media Vetting: What's the Difference?
A social media background check is the broader process of reviewing a candidate's publicly available online presence to identify reputational or employment risk. Social media vetting, by contrast, is the deeper compliance-focused review typically required for regulated roles - security, financial services, healthcare and government contracts where a formal audit trail is necessary.
Our social media vetting process runs against ten defined risk categories, producing a documented report that meets the evidentiary standard UK regulators expect. Whether you need a standard social media background check for general hiring or full social media vetting for a regulated role, our team delivers both through one streamlined platform.
What Information does a Social Media Background Check Reveal?
Most people are online in some form or another. The average number of social media accounts a person has is seven. This means that there's a plethora of information that is publicly available. If any information sits in the public domain, it's visible to yourself, your customers and clients.
Viewing information in the public domain is preferable for some employers as it can help make their recruitment decisions and processes more manageable.
Social media searches involve looking at candidates' social media profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and so on), as well as conducting adverse media checks and deep web sources. Every social media background check we deliver covers all major platforms relevant to UK candidates.
Social media screening sounds straightforward, but reviewing a candidate's publicly available information in a compliant and thorough manner shouldn't be the remit of someone already working within an organisation's HR department. Therefore, choosing an accredited background check agency with experience handling social media screening for employment is the way forward.
How does Social Media Employment Screening Work?
A person’s digital identity and information can provide a vast amount of insight into their character, interests and endeavours. Organisations can leverage all of this publicly available information to hire the best talent for their organisation.
Conversely, social media profiles can reveal online activity and behaviour by applicants who may end up proving a potential risk to your organisation. This could be due to the following risk categories:
- Illegal activities
- Hate speech, racist or discriminatory behaviour
- Inappropriate or undesirable conduct
- Sexually explicit or abusive content
- Potential substance abuse or addiction
- Extreme violence or threatening behaviour
- Obscene or abusive language
- Insults or bullying
If you’re wondering, “should employers check employees’ social media?” The answer is yes, they should, as the above information could be revealed and such individuals would be prevented from entering the organisation.
More importantly, however, Eurocom CI's social media background checks are conducted in a legal, compliant and structured manner. Our clients are only given information that they need to make better-informed decisions while protecting the candidate’s right to privacy. This includes their:
- Race
- Religion
- Disability(ies)
- Gender
- Age
- Skin colour
Our social media search consults publicly available, open-source information. The checks are run against 10 defined categories - eight risk categories and two positive indicators - for each candidate. Each risk category (listed below) will be red-flagged if any relevant content is identified, which will then be detailed in a comprehensive report.
Social Media Background Check Risk Categories
Why Consider Social Media Screening?
Eurocom CI's background checks on social media profiles can give organisations the following benefits. Our social media background check services are used by employers across healthcare, finance, education and security to add a final, vital layer of assurance to their hiring process.
- Efficient results
- Affordability
- Zero false positives
- Global reach (with over 200 languages covered)
- Compliance with GDPR and other relevant privacy legislation
- A fully-auditable process
- Structured processes for employment and business-related risks only
- Confidentiality for protected characteristics
- No ‘last to know’ scenarios
- Scalable solutions that make suitable replacements for character references
- Undisclosed social media profiles identified
- Advanced technology
- Flexible risk categories
All of the above means that organisations can confidently:
Save costs associated with bad hires
Assess candidate suitability
Remove bias from hiring process and decisions
Protect your employees, customers, business and reputation
We offer the following checks:
Media Archive Internet Search
This is an internet search of all the information that maybe available on the candidate from all sources of media. This is a computerised search. It forms the first layer of our social media background check process.
No need to sign up required, just order instantly.
Social Media Search
The deep and dark web interrogation to pinpoint any potential risks. This is the core component of our social media screening service for regulated and high-trust roles.
No need to sign up required, just order instantly.
Why us?
No sign-up fees or ongoing costs: You only pay for the checks you need
~48-hour turnaround: Minimising delays to your recruitment process
References chased automatically and by real people: Our team follows up so you don't have to
Every screening reviewed by 3 separate team members: Reducing the risk of errors or missed flags
Free software demonstrations: See exactly how the platform works before you commit
Xavier, our proprietary screening platform: A user-friendly system built specifically for employers, with real-time candidate tracking
First-class customer service: a friendly, knowledgeable team available to answer your questions
Screening certificate and report available to download when completed