The focus of any individual looking to fill positions should be to attract and identify as many suitable candidates as possible. Social media can be used to reach a large audience very quickly for HR departments. There are tens of thousands of job search sites currently, and this is more than a trend. Social media will be utilized moving forward in staffing, "According to the Forrester Research Group of Cambridge, Massachusetts, there are approximately 30,000 different websites devoted in some manner to job postings activities, and approximately 71 percent of all job listings occur on just a handful of the "big boards" such as Monster (monster.com), CareerBuilder (careerbuilder.com), and America's Job Bank (jobsearch.org)" (Ivancevich & Konopaske, 2013, Pg. 197), Social media websites built for employment opportunities make the application process simple for both employer and potential employees. They allow employers to reach masses of people with the click of a button, while appealing to a younger generation.
Many companies have experienced the ease of social media sites, as well as the financial benefits, "UPS hired 955 employees who applied through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The cost of hiring a candidate this way was about $70 per hire, compared with about $600 per hire using print advertising" (Ivancevich "et al", 2013, Pg. 199), At a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising, social media is an invaluable tool to any company. Organizations must constantly watch their bottom line and hiring employees is an expensive process. The various job search sites help to yield huge numbers of applicants, and each one must be screened. Firm's should be concerned with determining if an applicant possesses the knowledge, abilities, skills, and other characteristics to adequately perform in a position. In very few circumstances would this require an individual's personal social media profile to be evaluated.
Even when a company requires employees to utilize social media, the employee can simply create a new profile. Given the legal repercussions of unfairly discriminating against an applicant, and the subconscious associations that could be subjectively applied to an individuals personal profile, it is simply not worth the risk. Staffing policies should incorporate social media sites designed for such practices, and avoid the unnecessary danger of invading the privacy of an applicant.