THE FIRST WORD: Sébastien Fernandez, associate professor of organizational behavior at EHL Hospitality Business School, looks beyond credentials when searching for top talents on LinkedIn.
The year 2022 saw many trends and phenomena that rocked the HR industry the world over. From the rise of a distributed workforce, the Great Resignation and quiet quitting, HR leaders have faced an increasingly unpredictable environment. With a global recession looming ahead, a trend of layoffs, and many job markets in Southeast Asia slowing down, workplace volatility is expected to continue into 2023. Hiring the right candidate will become even more critical to enabling a sustainable and future-ready organisation.
With eight people hired every minute and more than 244 million people in APAC on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional site is arguably the best place to be for recruiters looking for talents.
Many use this platform to gather insightful data about candidates in a process called cybervetting, where they look for information such as prior work experience, educational background or technical skills to support or contradict a candidate’s resume and identify potential red flags. The profiles also contain LinkedIn-exclusive information such as the number of connections, posts, pictures, summary, recommendations and influencers followed. Taken together, these could provide accurate clues about the personalities and traits of an individual to determine the potential of cultural and skills fit. But what should be the key aspects recruiters must look out for and what do these reveal?
We recently conducted a study to find out what these pieces of information or LinkedIn indicators are and how they inform us about individuals’ personalities. Below is a summary of the signals examined in the study and how these could help recruiters evaluate potential candidates:
⦁ Openness to experience
This personality trait refers to curiosity, intellectual complexity, unconventional thinking and proneness to fantasy. Such individuals tend to be more artistic and thrive in professions that require creativity. They might personalise their LinkedIn pages to make it more distinctive and are usually interested in developing new competencies such as a learning a second language. They also tend to be more social or environmentally engaged.
One would find in their LinkedIn profiles a list of skills related to curiosity or creativity, the mastery of more languages and extracurricular activities that are artistic or related to social or environmental responsibility. Such an individual would usually also have an artistic background in his/her photograph or profile and tends to follow more influencers.
⦁ Conscientiousness
Individuals who have this trait are organised, purposeful and strive for achievements. They tend to do well in academic contexts, scoring higher grades, participating in more extracurricular activities and achieving more certificates. They also do well in job searches by putting more effort into crafting flawless profiles.
Recruiters would usually find their summary sections completed, and their profiles updated, having carefully described their prior work experiences as well as taken the time to list their courses, school results, academic awards and extracurricular activities, and any specific roles such as class representative or student ambassador. They would also have gotten recommendations from their colleagues or professors and would indicate their organisational skills.
⦁ Extraversion
These individuals thrive in social environments and their profiles reflect that. They are usually natural and confident leaders who are proactive. Although seemingly superfluous, extraverted individuals would report their participation in sports as a way to differentiate themselves as well as to showcase their proactivity.
Given how sociable these people are, what recruiters can usually find on an extraverted profile is a wide professional network with more than 500 connections. They would have listed their leadership skills as well as any sporting activities. Such individuals are also more likely to include more pictures or have a background image representing human interactions.
⦁ Agreeableness
Agreeable individuals tend to express prosocial values and are usually empathetic and helpful. They do well in team settings, supporting and cooperating with their colleagues.
These candidates would usually smile more in their portrait photographs, list skills related to teamwork and are likely to indicate their volunteer work.
Interestingly, professional attire and inattentiveness, e.g. making spelling errors in their profiles, are not related to conscientiousness. Neither is public speaking and social skills as signals of extraversion, nor is giving recommendations an indicator of agreeableness.
A lot is on the line for recruiters, who need to seek the best talent, sometimes without even meeting the prospect in person, especially for distributed teams post-Covid. As such, social media like LinkedIn has become essential to a hiring manager’s toolkit. It is a resourceful platform that helps recruiters by providing them with a different set of lenses. Saturated with information, LinkedIn profiles may provide an accurate picture of a candidate’s personality that is not featured on their resume.
However, it is advisable not to rely only on these LinkedIn indicators. While a relevant source of information, it is best to combine them with other screening methods or sources.
About the Author
Sébastien Fernandez, PhD, associate professor of Organizational Behavior, EHL
Sébastien Fernandez, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at EHL since 2011. He received his BSc and MSc in Psychology from the University of Lausanne and his PhD in Differential Psychology from the University of Geneva. He worked in the Swiss Army for five years where he was in charge of the assessment of the candidates for officer positions.
He has taught courses in human behavior and performance, talent assessment, psychology, and interpersonal relations. Sébastien is interested in helping the hospitality industry and leaders of tomorrow to take into account the psychological forces that drive high performance in organizational settings and to make decisions (such as talent decisions) with the help of evidence-based and innovative approaches coming from the field of organizational psychology.
THE FIRST WORD is Chief of Staff Asia’s regular commentary, starting off every week with HR experts sharing their opinion on pressing issues. Do you have something to share with us? Email firstword@chiefofstaff.asia.
