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Contacting a candidate's connections?
Recruiting & Staffing
Contacting a candidate's connections?
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I wanted to get the opinion of professional recruiters and HR staff. As a job seeker, I recently went through an initial screening with an HR member. I liked the sound of the position and agreed to co
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Forums » Topic Forums » Recruiting & Staffing » Contacting a candidate's connections?
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Contacting a candidate's connections?
posted at 3/13/2013 12:04 PM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 1
First: 3/13/2013 Last: 3/13/2013 |
I wanted to get the opinion of professional recruiters and HR staff. As a job seeker, I recently went through an initial screening with an HR member. I liked the sound of the position and agreed to come in to meet with the rest of the team. In the past day, the HR member invited me to connect with him on LinkedIn and I accepted. This morning, I received a call from a former colleague and found that the HR member had reached out to her to ostensibly get information about me (what I was like to work with, why I'd left, etc). Thankfully, my working relationship with my former colleague was great and she was complimentary about my performance, but that's besides the point. My question to you is: is contacting a candidate's LinkedIn connections acceptable?? I've been working fulltime for the past 15 years, and this is the first time that this has occurred and I find it to be a giant red flag about the organization. I haven't yet met with the rest of the team and I'm considering canceling the interview because of this.
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Re: Contacting a candidate's connections?
posted at 3/13/2013 1:01 PM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 221
First: 9/29/2011 Last: 5/2/2013 |
I wouldn't get overly exercised over the company checking with your contacts. While LinkedIn might be part of the greater social media network, it's primary purpose is to network for employment and business purposes. Reaching out to your LinkedIn contacts would be no different, for example, than the employer looking at your background, seeing that he knows someone at your past employer and then calling that person to do a reference check. Happens all the time. At least with LinkedIn you can control who your contacts are. It's becoming more and more a common business practice for potential employers to check social media sites for information about prospects. If you post on Facebook, for example, those posts are now in the public domain. I've seen employers back off hiring candidates simply because the candidate posted some vulgar words or posted a picture of him/herself drunk. I've used LinkedIn contacts myself as references. The old traditional "give me three references we can call" is pretty worthless; after all, who doesn't know 3 people who will say good things about you? The LinkedIn contacts give a truer picture. Your potential employer is being cautious and reducing employment risks, If anything, this should tell you that it's a pretty well run company, probably better than average. |
Forums » Topic Forums » Recruiting & Staffing » Contacting a candidate's connections?
