The effects of negative content in social networking profiles on perceptions of employment suitability

As a step toward further understanding the relationship between social networking content and perceptions of employment suitability, the present study assessed the impact of three examples of potentially negative content. Namely, this research focused on self-absorption, opinionatedness, and alcohol and drug use, where a sample of 436 hiring managers evaluated experimentally manipulated hypothetical Facebook candidate profiles. The results demonstrated that content related to each construct had a negative impact on person–organization fit and overall candidate evaluation. Moreover, self-absorption had the largest negative effect. There were also significant hiring manager age interaction effects. Older hiring managers more heavily weighted less opinionated content with respect to overall candidate evaluation and content without alcohol and drug use for person–organization fit.