Overview

The results of the Microsoft-commissioned survey 'Online Reputation in a Connected World' published at the start of the year provided some revealing insights to the extent of use of online vetting by recruiters and HR professionals in the US, UK, Germany and France. It also highlighted that, particularly in the US and the UK, the public underestimates the extent to which HR professionals rely on what they find online.

The UK statistics revealed by the survey were that 47% of the recruiters and HR professionals surveyed would look for online reputational data and 41% had rejected candidates based on information found online. By stark contrast, only 9% of the UK public who were surveyed thought that their online information had any impact on job searches. When UK recruiters and HR professionals were asked whether they inform candidates that online content factored in their rejection, only 63% confirmed that they did.

According to the survey, the UK is trumped by the US and Germany, where 79% and 59% respectively of recruiters and HR professionals surveyed said that they carried out online vetting searchers. France was bottom of the league, with only 23% of surveyed recruiters and HR professionals admitting that they carried out online vetting.

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