Use Caution Posting Employee Recommendations on Business Networking Sites
LinkedIn, the business networking website, is becoming wildly popular. Anyone can create a personal “page” that includes, if the person wishes, both a personal and professional profile. Job seekers are now flocking to create individual LinkedIn pages, and employers are turning to LinkedIn to research job candidates.
One feature offered on the site is the opportunity to post a professional recommendation on someone’s page. If you are an employer, you may be asked at some point to post such a recommendation for an exiting employee.
Should you receive such a request, we recommend that you stick with basic information, such as employment dates and positions held, and not say much more. Resist the temptation to give a glowing recommendation unless the reasons for termination had nothing to do with performance. If you rave about your former employee’s performance and yet you let that person go for not doing their job, then the employee could use the LinkedIn recommendation to claim that the termination was the result of discrimination or harassment.
You will also want to absolutely avoid posting any negative information about a former employee.
Finally, if you research a job candidate’s background online, be careful not to use any information that you find – negative or positive – in a discriminatory manner.
Lee Flaherty