careerbuilder.com Explores Backgrounds

Alongside a new social media brand management service, leading US job website careerbuilder.com has launched a new tool to help employers conduct background searches on job applicants.

Applicant Explorer is designed to provide “public yet hard-to-find” information about a candidate that is available online. Using the new Microsoft search engine Bing, Applicant Explorer draws information from sources such as forum posts, press releases, public and personal blogs, and social networking websites.

careerbuilder.com is promoting the tool as a time-saving way to find out information about a candidate that is not included in their resume, and is offering it for free with its resume database subscriptions.

Greg Bass, careerbuilder.com’s director of profile search, explains the tool:

“Applicant Explorer is a cutting-edge tool that was developed to save careerbuilder.com clients valuable time in their recruitment process. With so many employers already utilising the Internet to research candidates, Applicant Explorer was created to help employers do that necessary research in the most efficient and simple way possible – helping them go beyond the resume. In addition, job seekers can benefit from the clearer picture employers can gather of their qualifications and background.”

News of Applicant Explorer has raised questions about personal information available through online social networking. A review of the tool on ere community asks: “I wonder if enough candidates are asking themselves, ‘do employers need to know all this?’”

Bass responded to privacy concerns raised on a careerbuilder.com blog post, saying:

“Applicant Explorer only looks at a candidate that has openly expressed interest in telling prospective employers that they are looking for a new job. We fully respect the privacy settings of a person’s networking profiles, and the external links that Applicant Explorer finds are all ones that are available via any major search engine.”

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