Social Media Checks: A Complete Guide for Employers [2025]

Increasingly, employers search for job candidates online and check their social media accounts during the hiring process.

However, improperly conducting social media checks can introduce significant liability risks for your organization.

This guide, written by our team of background check experts, will help you understand the laws that apply, best practices, and what to avoid doing.

What is a Social Media Check?

A social media check examines a candidate’s public online presence across platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to gain insights beyond what is reported on their resume.

Through these screenings, employers can review publicly available posts, comments, and shared content to better understand potential hires.

These checks can be integrated with other background checks during the hiring process when you work with an experienced provider like iprospectcheck.

Why are Social Media Checks Important?

1. Help Employers Understand Cultural Fit

Many people share posts that reflect their personalities and values.

This information can help you assess how they might fit into your workplace culture and the contributions they could make.

It also helps to understand whether they would be a good representative for your company.

2. Identify Risks

Social media checks can reveal concerning behavior in candidates that may put your company at risk.

This includes comments a candidate might have made about their professional history, oversharing potentially confidential information, and other activities that employers consider adverse.

These checks can also help you to identify candidates who have trouble getting along with others and might cause a loss of morale.

3. Confirm Candidate Claims

Social media checks complement other background check reports such as professional license verification, employment verification, and education verification.

They might provide more information about a candidate’s honesty on their resume.

4. Protect Your Company’s Brand

It can take several years to cultivate a positive brand for your company.

All the work you’ve put into building your brand can suddenly be devalued when an employee engages in offensive conduct that reflects poorly on your business.

These checks can provide information about a candidate’s character and allow employers to assess how well they might work with other employees and interact with customers.

What Shows Up on a Social Media Check?

A social media check report will include content your background check provider has found that is relevant to the position you are hiring for and your company.

When a social media check reveals problematic online content, the report will highlight specific posts or information that could signal potential workplace risks or professional misconduct.

If you want your provider to include social media searches as a part of your background checks, you’ll want to look for warning signs that indicate the applicant might engage in conduct that could be problematic for your company, employees, and customers, including:

• Racist statements
• Sexist comments
• Harassing comments
• Posts about drug use
• Posts or comments indicating other illegal activities
• Explicit content (photos or videos)
• Threats of violence
• Derogatory posts about past employers
• Sharing past employers’ potentially confidential information

What are the Drawbacks of Social Media Checks?

While social media checks can supplement the information learned through background checks, they also have several drawbacks you should consider:

1. Privacy Concerns

Job applicants reasonably expect that employers won’t unfairly dissect their personal lives.

As an employer, it’s important to balance your need to gather information about an applicant with their need for privacy.

If you go too far, it can damage your company’s reputation and make people less likely to trust you.

2. Potential of False Information

Some information on social media platforms is false, and some individuals will use others’ identities and post in their names.

This could lead you to wrongly believe a candidate made some concerning posts they never did and aren’t aware of.

3. Confusing Candidates With Similarly Named Individuals

Another issue is that many people share similar names.

It can be hard to determine whether a particular account belongs to a candidate or someone else.

4. Impact of Protected Status

It’s possible you could come across information that shows a candidate has protected characteristics, including:

• National origin
• Race
• Color
• Religion
• Age
• Sex
• Disability
• Pregnancy
• Sexual orientation
• Gender identity
• Genetic information
• Citizenship status

This knowledge could cause hiring managers to base decisions on illegally discriminatory biases.

5. Time-Consuming

If your company decides to try to complete social media checks internally, they can take a lot of time that could be better spent on other work activities.

Legal Considerations

Federal Laws

Fair Credit Reporting Act

Employers that conduct social media checks as a part of a background check must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

This consumer privacy law enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) applies to background check companies that gather and report consumer information and employers who receive it.

Under the FCRA, employers must comply with notice and consent requirements by clearly notifying applicants that they conduct background checks. This notice must be in a standalone form that doesn’t include other information.

You must also obtain your applicant’s written consent before starting the background and social media check process.

If you decide not to hire an applicant based on what you learn in the background check reports, it’s important to complete the following adverse action steps before you make a final decision:

• Send a pre-adverse action letter to the candidate with a copy of the report that contains the problematic information.
• Give the applicant a reasonable time to respond, which is generally five business days. The applicant can provide evidence that the information is erroneous or that they have been rehabilitated.
• Send a final adverse action letter with a copy of the applicant’s FCRA rights if you make a final decision not to hire them.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the leading workplace anti-discrimination law.

It prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on an applicant’s or employee’s race, religion, color, sex, or national origin.

Amendments to this law and judicial decisions have added other protected classes, including disability, genetic information, citizenship status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, and gender identity.

Title VII might affect employers if they search an applicant’s or employee’s social media accounts themselves and uncover information about their protected characteristics because it could lead to discrimination.

Employers should avoid performing searches on their own and should instead partner with a reliable provider like iprospectcheck to avoid potential bias and other issues.

National Labor Relations Act

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects the rights of employees to engage in certain protected speech off the work site.

Employees can talk about salaries, encourage collective bargaining, and engage in other similar discussions.

If you find that an applicant has made these types of posts in the past about former employers, you could run the risk of violating the NLRA if you decide not to hire them based on those types of posts.

State Laws

Many states have enacted social media privacy laws.

While these laws vary, most prohibit employers from asking their employees and applicants for access to their accounts, for their passwords, to add a supervisor to their contact lists, or to open their social media accounts in their presence.

Some of these laws provide exceptions when an employer wants to access an employee’s social media as a part of an investigation.

These laws generally do not ban employers from searching publicly available social media information, however.

The states with social media privacy laws include:

• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Montana
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Vermont
• Virginia
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

Since these laws vary, you should consult legal counsel to learn about the requirements in your state.

Best Practices for Social Media Checks

1. Develop a Thorough Social Media Policy

Along with your background check policy, you should also develop a thorough social media policy that complies with all relevant laws.

Explain when your company will perform social media checks and how they will be conducted.

Include information about how HR personnel should review and assess findings to make employment decisions.

2. Partner With a Reliable Background Check Provider

It’s not a good idea to perform social media checks yourself because of the risks you can be exposed to.

Instead, you should partner with a reliable background check provider such as iprospectcheck that offers social media checks as a part of a more comprehensive screening.

Because it’s important to evaluate social media information in context with other background information, we integrate these checks into a background check package rather than performing them as standalone reports.

3. Train HR Personnel

Thoroughly train the HR personnel who will review social media reports.

Make sure they know what to look for and how to handle the results consistently.

This helps to reduce the risk of bias influencing their decisions.

4. Provide Notice and Obtain Consent

The FCRA’s notice and consent rules apply whenever you work with a third party to conduct background checks.

Before you order a background check that includes a social media search, notify your candidates of your intent.

This notice should be on a separate form to make it easier to notice.

Obtain your candidates’ written consent to review their social media and check their backgrounds before you initiate the searches.

5. Don’t Ask for Passwords

Never ask an applicant to give you their social media password or to open their accounts in your presence.

This is illegal in numerous states.

Even if your state doesn’t have a social media privacy law, asking for this type of information will likely be viewed as a severe invasion of privacy and harm your company’s reputation.

6. Make Sure Information is Relevant

Any information you consider should be relevant to the job and the candidate’s qualifications and ability to perform.

Don’t consider irrelevant personal information when making a hiring decision.

7. Document Findings

If you identify content that you consider a warning sign for your business, document it thoroughly.

Thorough documentation can help protect your company against allegations of discrimination.

8. Complete the Adverse Action Process

If you learn information from a social media check and a background check that makes you decide not to hire the applicant, complete the adverse action process before you make a final decision.

Trust iprospectcheck for Social Media Background Checks

With more and more job seekers on social media, it’s no surprise that employers increasingly view these platforms as valuable tools for evaluating candidates’ professional presence and cultural fit.

At iprospectcheck, our approach to social media screening complements traditional background checks.

We stay current with evolving privacy and employment laws to deliver thorough, accurate, and compliant background checks.

To learn more about our services or to get a free quote, contact us today: (888) 509-1979.

DISCLAIMER: The resources provided here are for educational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Consult your counsel if you have legal questions related to your specific practices and compliance with applicable laws.