Facebook Profiles Can Predict Work Performance

When a company is in the process of hiring a new employee, there's a standard set of things it typically does — follow up with references, check the cover letter for obvious typos, and do some basic due diligence to ensure all of the companies listed on the candidate's resume actually exist. A recent study conducted by researchers at Old Dominion University advises adding another task to that checklist: stalking the hopeful employees on Facebook. As it turns out, your social media profile knows more about you than you know about yourself.

The study, "Incremental Validity of Social Media Ratings to Predict Job Performance," looked at 146 undergraduate students who were employed outside the university they attended. Each student took an online personality test and agreed to have their social media profiles examined by a team of observers who rated them on a whole suite of characteristics ranging from agreeableness to neuroticism. Read more...