LinkedIn and Facebook in Belgium: The Influences and Biases of Social Network Sites in Recruitment and Selection Procedures

This study investigates whether Belgian recruitment and selection (R&S) professionals use LinkedIn and Facebook during their R&S procedures and to what extent. A total of 398 and 353 respondents, respectively, from various sectors and from organizations of various sizes, responded to an online questionnaire concerning Facebook and LinkedIn. Descriptive analyses indicate that both the social network sites have become extra tools for recruiting applicants, to find additional information about them, and to decide who will be invited for an interview. Belgian R&S professionals do, however, use LinkedIn and Facebook in a different way, both for recruitment and for selection. Finally, it is shown that while R&S professionals claim profile pictures on Facebook do not provide signals on personality dimensions like emotional stability and agreeableness, they do tend to recognize signals of extraversion and maturity. The latter creates the risk that common selection biases occur even before the first interview.