• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, July 9, 2013

Who would have thought that a collection of digital miscellanea might not be the best way to judge an individual you’ve never met in person? Oh right, lots of people with common sense. But apparently not employers, who are apt to pass on well-qualified job candidates because of perfunctory or misdirected glances at their social media profiles.

That’s according to a new study from North Carolina State University, the “Big Five Personality Traits Reflected in Job Applicants’ Social Media Postings,” published in the online journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. NCSU psychology professor Lori Thompson’s team administered psychological exams to 175 participants to determine their employability, judging by traits such as conscientiousness and extroversion -- and found that these positive traits often coexist with Facebook profile elements which employers view as undesirable.

Thompson noted: “Companies often scan a job applicant’s Facebook profile to see whether there is evidence of drug or alcohol use, believing that such behavior means the applicant is not ‘conscientious,’ or responsible and self-disciplined.” Score one for hypocritical Puritanism! It turns out to be especially stupid and self-defeating in certain professional categories, as the type of extroverted personality who makes, say, a good salesperson, is also apt to like to socialize and post pictures of their social activity… which may include (gasp) getting buzzed.

One area where employers are on the right track, according to the NCSU study, is using social media to weed out applicants who badmouth or insult other people, since these people are indeed more likely to rate low in measures like agreeability and conscientiousness.

In June I wrote about a survey from On Device Research which found that roughly one in ten (8%) U.S. job-seekers ages 16-24 have lost a job opportunity because of something on their social media profiles. Despite this, the majority of U.S. teens and young adults appeared unworried about social media’s potential professional impact, as 70% of those surveyed said they weren’t concerned about social media harming their future career prospects.

In April 2012 a survey of 2,300 hiring managers conducted by CareerBuilder found that 40% use social media to screen job candidates, and a third of this group (13% of the total) said they have rejected an applicant based on what they found on social media. Among the group that had rejected applicants based on social media, 49% cited inappropriate comments or photos, 45% cited photos showing the candidate drinking or using drugs, and 35% said the profile showed poor communication skills. Meanwhile 33% said the candidate criticized a previous employer, 28% said they made discriminatory or offensive comments relating to race, religion or gender, and 22% said they’d lied about their qualifications.