Facebook Usage as Social Screening. Exploring the Approach of Admissions Officers from Management Colleges
Facebook Usage as Social Screening. Exploring the Approach of Admissions Officers from Management Colleges

Summary/Abstract: The online social networks allow individuals to continuously create and model their self-presentations and representations. Facebook stands for a relevantexample as people are given the uncensored opportunity to unfold their online selvesaccording to their interests, preferences, goals and expectations. As a social networkingsite, Facebook is particularly used for reasons related to social documentation (socialsearching) and maintaining preexisting close relationships (bonding social capital)that imply knowledge of new information about persons met offline, and less for socialexploration (social browsing) that refers to using Facebook to initiate new contacts.The extant recent literature often approach the usage of Facebook as a preemploymentscreening tool with a view to select the fittest candidates for the job. Still,there are few studies which address the professors’ endeavor to use social media, ingeneral and Facebook, in particular, as a complementary criterion when selectingfuture students. At this level, Facebook profiles are liable to stand for cogent indicatorsfor the prospects’ personalities and potential, for their predispositions and professionalperspectives. Starting from this point, the current research aims at investigating theapproaches on the aforementioned issue of several professors from Managementcolleges in Romania who are in charge of settling the evaluation reference points of thecollege admissions procedure. The research is the more relevant so as the futuregraduate managers should possess some key characteristics which may be anticipatedor pre-assessed based on their Facebook profile cues. In order to test the subjects’openness to consider the implications of Facebook usage as a thorough socialdocumentation tool, nineteen in-depth interviews were conducted. The findings showthat there is a high degree of skepticism towards using Facebook as a source of reliableinformation.

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