HR Profiling. BY STUDYLIE
might stand infantilism or the desire to return to the time when you were cared for. In other words, a person has a difficult stressful period in life, he needs support and care. If parents post a photo of their child on an avatar, this may indicate an obsession with their child. Or given context of career it may speak about feeling of non-fulfillment. There is an opinion that avatars with photos of a couple (if not married) point to an attempt to prove that «they love me after all» or that a person is kind of losing himself in a partner.
And what if a person has no account in social networking sites? Of course, the reasons are few. For example, a person is in public services or so, where people are forbidden to create accounts under there own name (FSB, etc.). But it is possible that this is how suspicious, secretive, inquisitive, unsociable, distrustful, introverted and cautious nature is expressed. It is these traits cause people to reluctantly show off their lives, which is opposite from the motives of people who put out 2000 photos with their image. And of course profiles of these people are very different. We use this tool not only in the case of staff recruitment, but also when analyzing information about potential partners or people we need. And often there are situations when a person simply hides away because of debts and obligations, therefore he does not maintain any page or deletes all accounts.
Not so long ago at the personnel profiling training, we analyzed a profile of one of the participants with the consent of him. Avatars had not a single photo with his image. It turned out that he was the owner of a collection agency, and for security reasons he had to hide his external data. That is, professional activity assumed possibility threats against him and other troubles, if people knew what he looked like. In this case, the absence of an account is a necessary measure for security purposes.
Another reason is that people from the IT sphere are well aware of the «big brother» who is watching us, and realize that the more information you post, the more chances that someone collects it and uses for somebody’s purposes. Or the person simply does not have time to maintain the page. For example, entrepreneurs are too busy for this. If social networking sites are used to promote business, then there is no room for communication on personal issues, the same applies to personal information.
Analyzing photos, keep in mind that people will put out those photos that they consider to be their reflection. In one of the training seminars a participant asked to analyze the information about her former employee, who was fired for certain violations. There were few photos and contexts, and about 5—6 photographs contained pictures of this girl drinking alcohol, in one of the photographs she was dressed in quite a vulgar manner. On her «wall» hung a fixed message with free views of a vulgar character. Compiling a social networking sites profile, we take into account that there are no random photos there, a person deliberately demonstrates something and this information is significant. So it turned out that the employee had difficulties with alcohol and the course of her behavior. Juicy pages and groups that she was part of partially confirmed the guess. So sometimes, it is enough to look at the site and make the right decision whether it is worth hiring this person or not.
While looking through the social networking sites, besides the groups content, pay attention to the general trend of interests of these groups or the absence of the groups. For example, if there are 4—5 groups of the same or similar subjects, that may speak about certain interest. Thanks to the page, one can compare what a person writes about himself in the resume and what content he puts on the page. For example, we read in the resume: «I am a professional, responsible, purposeful, reliable», and in the photo we see a person who is always hanging out with his friends in clubs, at parties, with a bottle in his hand. He will probably fit a sales manager position if not to consider the risk factor for alcohol. But in terms of the position of the manager it might give pause for thought.
By the way, consider reading the comments and answers to them – there is also a lot of information useful for analysis.
It is also worth noting that the candidate may have several pages in different social networking sites. The information in them sometimes varies, and putting everything together, we can make a more complete profile.
Summarizing aforementioned, we shall highlight that social networking sites give lots of information about a person, but not all of it. People in social networking sites often present the desired image. Your task is to analyze the maximum of what it may tell, because there are clues to the question: whether to invite a person for an interview or immediately refuse his application.
Working with open information resources
Try and write your phone number, email address and name in Google or Yandex. Sometimes search engines find interesting and useful information, starting with where the candidates left their contacts, and ending with the fact that they had to do with a scandal or trial with the company they had worked for before.
We had a case when we ran a search on the email address of a candidate applying for a leadership position. The name of the email address was quite interesting: a set of letters in a special order with numbers. We found in free access information that a person with such a nickname (the name of the mail) plays online games for money, making large bets. The site had information on how often does the person with such a nickname play, how much does he lose and win. Thus, we received information about the risk factor, which, by the way, was confirmed. This candidate periodically got into gaming debts.
It is worth noting that Google or Yandex do not always give information about the phone numbers and mails. In this case, use other search engines, for example, duckduckgo.com and so on.
Open information sources also include the federal website of bailiffs (fssprus.ru). There is information about execution writs and debts of the candidate, about the arrested property and unpaid fines written by the traffic police patrol service. By the way, talking about the girl who had problems with alcohol (example above): on the website of the bailiffs we found that her property was seized, and she had enforcement proceedings worth up to 80,000 rubles.
Regarding debts, including the payment of alimony, there is data if the court has already passed, the decision was made and there is a writ of execution. This gives a certain characteristic of the candidate, especially if there are large debts. This testifies both to the attitude towards one’s obligations, and to a possible risk factor. A person burdened with debts will try to find ways to pay them off, including secret use of company resources. On the whole, a person who does not systematically fulfill his financial obligations is unlikely to behave differently in your company.
In short, with the help of such services you may protect yourself from risks when choosing a candidate. Of course, these issues are handled by the security service, the are not your responsibility. But if you have tools that make it easier for you to settle on a candidate and save time – why not using them?
In addition to search engines and the website of bailiffs, look for information on decisions of general courts, Magistrates courts and arbitration courts of the Russian Federation with the participation of a candidate as the plaintiff or the defendant. To do this, use a reference and legal system RosPravosudiye (rospravosudie.com), the site of the federal arbitration courts of the Russian Federation (arbitr.ru) and other similar sites. Thus you will know the candidate’s past and present court decisions, how often did he sue an employer, or how often was he sued.
Once again, search of information about a candidate with the use of open resources requires a creative approach. Sometimes useful information comes from unexpected sources. Therefore, the mentioned sites search list can be extended.
Working with information databases
If you have access to databases – counterparty checking services, such as SPARK, Kontur Focus, Prima Inform, you can find out if the candidate was (or is) the founder or CEO of any organization. Suppose we select a person for the post of top manager. He positions himself as an excellent manager, he was the owner of various businesses and projects, but liquidated them or resold them, because there were more interesting and profitable niches. So we look for information through the counterparty