Resumes, interviews, and traditional background checks can tell employers a great deal about a candidate, but they do not always provide a complete picture. Publicly available online activity can offer additional context about behaviors that may affect workplace safety, company culture, customer relationships, or an organization’s reputation.
To help employers gain greater insight while maintaining a structured screening process, Metrodata Services now offers Social Media Screening. Powered by Ferretly, this AI-assisted service reviews publicly available digital content and organizes relevant findings into reports employers can evaluate as part of their broader hiring strategy.
What Is Social Media Screening?
Social media screening is a structured review of publicly accessible online content connected to a candidate, employee, contractor, or volunteer.
Depending on the screening package and available information, the process can evaluate public profiles, posts, comments, replies, images, reposts, forums, blogs, news articles, and other web content. Sources may include platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, TikTok, and other publicly accessible websites.
What Can Employers Learn?
Metrodata’s solution can analyze written and visual content for configurable behavioral indicators, including potentially threatening statements, abusive language, violent content, prejudicial language, explicit material, drug-related references, and employer-defined keywords.
Importantly, a flagged item does not automatically mean a candidate should be excluded. Social media screening provides additional information that employers can review in context based on the position, company policies, and applicable employment laws.
Why Not Simply Search Candidates Yourself?
It may seem easy for a hiring manager to search a candidate’s name online, but informal social media searches can introduce unnecessary risk.
A hiring manager could encounter information about religion, disability, medical conditions, sexual orientation, or other protected characteristics that should not factor into an employment decision. There is also the possibility of reviewing the wrong person’s profile.
A professional third-party screening process helps create separation between irrelevant personal information and job-related findings. Metrodata’s service uses profile-matching technology and multiple identifiers to improve accuracy while producing more consistent, organized reports.
Where Social Media Screening Can Add Value
Social media screening can be particularly useful for positions involving significant trust or public visibility, including:
- Executive and leadership positions
- Customer-facing employees
- Healthcare and education professionals
- Safety-sensitive roles
- Contractors and volunteers
- Employees with access to sensitive information
- Public-facing representatives
It can also complement Metrodata’s broader pre-employment background screening services rather than replacing criminal searches, employment verification, identity verification, or other traditional checks.
Keeping Social Media Screening Compliant
Employers should approach social media screening with the same care they bring to other employment background checks. When third-party screening is conducted for employment purposes, requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act may apply, including disclosure, authorization, and adverse action procedures. Employers should also consider applicable privacy and anti-discrimination laws.
That is another reason a standardized process matters. Rather than allowing individual hiring managers to conduct inconsistent online searches, employers can establish clear policies about when social media screening is used and what job-related information is relevant.
See More of the Picture with Metrodata
Social media screening gives employers another tool for making informed hiring decisions while protecting their people, culture, customers, and brand.
Metrodata combines more than 30 years of background screening experience with Ferretly’s technology to provide organizations with a structured approach to evaluating public digital footprints. The service can be used independently or incorporated into a customized background screening program.
Contact Metrodata Services to learn how Social Media Screening can add another layer of insight to your hiring and workforce risk strategy.
Request a No-Obligation Background Screening Services Consultation