Online Employment Screening and Digital Career Capital

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Management Communication Quarterly

2015, Vol. 29(1) 84 –113

© The Author(s) 2014

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Article

Online EmploymentScreening and Digital

Career Capital: ExploringEmployers’ Use ofOnline Information forPersonnel Selection

Brenda L. Berkelaar 1 and Patrice M. Buzzanell2

Abstract

This study explores how employers report using online information toevaluate job candidates during personnel selection. Qualitative analysisof 45 in-depth employer interviews emphasizes how new and differentinformation visibility afforded by the Internet simultaneously replicates andshifts how employers evaluate reconstructed information about candidatesduring personnel selection. Data revealed that employers evaluate therelative presence or absence of certain types of visual, textual, relational, andtechnological information in patterned and idiosyncratic ways. We discussthe likely consequences for theory and practices of personnel selection andcareers, emphasizing the increasing expectations for workers to curate digitalcareer capital to manage the expanding contexts within which employers

construct and evaluate professional and/or workplace identities.

Keywords

cybervetting, personnel selection, digital career capital, curating onlineidentity, information visibility, organizational processes, impressionmanagement

1The University of Texas at Austin, USA2Purdue University, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brenda L. Berkelaar, Department of Communication Studies, The University of Texas at

Austin, 2504A Whitis Avenue (A1105), Austin, TX 78712-0115, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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2014

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Berkelaar and Buzzanell 85

Employers consider personnel selection a central strategy for establishing

competitive advantage (Kraaijenbrink, 2011). Effective personnel selection

depends on acquiring sufficient, trustworthy information about job candi-

dates to evaluate who fits present and anticipated organizational needs(Dipboye, 2014). Until recently, such information focused on work-related

information sources primarily authored by job candidates themselves.

However, employers increasingly question the credibility of the information

job candidates provide, citing concerns of extreme impression management

(Weiss & Feldman, 2006) and deception (Griffin, Chmielowski, & Yoshita,

2007). Moreover, as employers try to avoid libel claims from former employ-

ees, references have become less available or provide little more than dates of

employment (Shilling, 2009). When added to employers’ growing liabilityfor negligent hires (Peebles, 2012) and competing legal and economic pres-

sures (Dipboye, 2014), it is clear why employers want alternative, easily

accessible sources of candidate information.

Given easy access to the Internet’s burgeoning supply of information

(Bohn & Short, 2009) with its promises to address the growing information

gap, most employers now search online (Cross-Tab, 2010). The Internet pro-

vides access to sources and types of information difficult or impossible to

access until recently, despite employers’ long-term interest in such informa-tion (Solove, 2008). Even given ongoing ethical debates and unclear legal

precedent regarding online information use for personnel selection (Peebles,

2012), most employers cybervet— using the Internet to acquire informal, non-

institutional, other-sourced, and/or aggregated information (Berkelaar,

Scacco, & Birdsell, 2014) that job candidates did not share or necessarily

intend for employers’ use (Solove, 2008).

Although many employers consider cybervetting analogous to conven-

tional information-seeking processes such as background checks, it is not.

Cybervetting changes the amount, source, order, context, type, and/or chan-

nel of information (Berkelaar, 2010). Such changes alter evaluations (Case,

2012) and subsequent personnel decisions (Jablin, 2001). In addition, Internet

uses and affordances alter expectations of what information is or should be

available (Berkelaar, 2014; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Such expectations are

consequential. In offline contexts when expected information is absent,

employers are more likely to disqualify job candidates (Jablin, 2001). Yet, the

processes underlying employers’ acquisition and use of online information

for personnel selection remain largely unexamined.This study examines how employers report using online information to

evaluate workers during personnel selection. Although personnel selection

involves hiring, promotion, and termination, our focus is primarily on

employers’ reported sensemaking during hiring. Analysis of interview data


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86 Management Communication Quarterly 29(1)

reveals how employers acquire, recontextualize, and use the presence and

absence of different types of online information to make sense of job candi-

dates. Thus, this study addresses ongoing calls to consider everyday practices

of personnel selection (Dipboye, 2014) and the impact of new technologieson organizational processes and outcomes (Treem & Leonardi, 2012).

Understanding how employers use online information can inform personnel

selection practices—the outcomes of which affect organizational productiv-

ity, employee satisfaction (Ployhart & Weekley, 2010), individual quality of

life, and social justice (Cheney, Lair, Ritz, & Kendall, 2009). This study also

highlights how growing information visibility—and expectations thereof—

affects employment relationships and career management. In particular, we

consider how cybervetting increases demands on individuals to curate theirdigital professional image in spatio-temporal contexts previously excluded

from personnel selection. We begin by describing the information context of

contemporary personnel selection before examining how cybervetting’s

characteristics likely influence job candidate evaluations.

The Context and Characteristics of Cybervetting

Personnel selection “is a dynamic process in which job seekers and variousagents of the organization exchange information and construct meaning in

the pursuit of their individual objectives” (Dipboye, 2014, p. 1). Employers

make sense of job candidates by piecing together available information to

determine whether a good match exists between individual offerings and

organizational needs. Such sensemaking often involves quick disqualifica-

tions using easily acquired information (Dipboye, 2014), particularly when

supply and demand favor employers. Employers tend to be more diligent

about increasing information quantity rather than improving quality (Jablin,

2001) or using acquired information more effectively (Dipboye, 2014).

The Information Context of Cybervetting

In post-industrial personnel selection, employers primarily evaluated job

candidates using information from work-oriented communications (e.g.,

résumés, applications, interviews, references). Given growing concerns

about candidate-supplied information, employers want to acquire informa-

tion from sources they consider more credible (Solove, 2008). For example,access to non-work contexts, unobtrusive observations, and people other than

job candidates themselves promise insights into a person’s true identity, char-

acter, and work ethic (Berger & Douglas, 1981; Solove, 2008). Moreover,

growing assertions that employees are extensions of an organization’s image




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and brand (Edwards, 2005) amplify employer interest, encouraging employ-

ers to view such information as valuable, even necessary, for assessing fit

(Berkelaar et al., 2014). Employers who buy into the employee-as-brand

mindset assume that employee actions outside contexts or times typicallyassociated with paid-work contracts can affect an organization’s image—and

should be controlled (Edwards, 2005). Employers have long wanted such

information; however, until recently, acquiring it was usually cost- or time-

prohibitive, limited to recommendations, references, or conversations made

possible by shared networks. Now, the growing popularity of online activities

(Bohn & Short, 2009) and advances in search and aggregation make different

sources and types of information visible —that is, both available and easily

accessible (Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Although employers’ desire for suchinformation is not new, how employers are fulfilling this desire is quite new.

Cybervetting —the process whereby employers seek information about job

candidates online—is typically covert, enabled by the Internet’s extractive

possibilities (Ramirez, Walther, Burgoon, & Sunnafrank, 2002). Cybervetting

often focuses on acquiring information from non-institutional, non-govern-

mental, and informal online sources (Berkelaar et al., 2014) such as social

media (Table 1). However, search engine and aggregator results often inter-

mingle social media and governmental, institutional, and/or (former) employ-ment information. By shifting sources and contexts, cybervetting alters the

scope of information and the proportion of work versus non-work informa-

tion, and when and how different information becomes included in personnel

selection. Such changes affect evaluations and subsequent decisions (Case,

2012; Jablin, 2001), making cybervetting an important, timely site for under-

standing contemporary personnel selection.

The Communicative Characteristics of Cybervetting Despite its growing popularity, cybervetting’s communicative characteristics

remain taken for granted. Cybervetting is often considered an extension of

offline practices (Peebles, 2012), although scholarship on information seek-

ing and communication technologies suggests otherwise (Metzger, Flanigan,

& Medders, 2010; Ramirez et al., 2002). We argue that cybervetting’s com-

munication characteristics—its how, when, what, where, and why—likely

affect job candidate evaluations and subsequent personnel selection

decisions.Prior to cybervetting, candidates had more control—if limited expertise—

when communicating the availability and value of accumulated career cre-

dentials. Job candidates made particular information visible to employers via

interactive, if asynchronous, processes expressly designed to gain




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employment (e.g., résumés, cover letters, interviews; Lair, Sullivan, &Cheney, 2005). Although references offer secondary sources, candidates

often select recommenders designed to reinforce impression management

goals (Shilling, 2009). Consequently employers view this information with

less trust than unobtrusive observations (Berger & Douglas, 1981) that cyber-

vetting affords. Although people historically were hesitant to trust informa-

tion acquired via computer-mediated communications, research suggests this

tendency may be changing (Metzger et al., 2010; Walther, Van Der Heide,

Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008).Employers find cybervetting desirable because job candidates have less

control over online information—presumably making it less subject to

extreme impression management. Online information becomes visible as a

result of communicative interactions, communicative extractions (Ramirez

Table 1. Comparing Cybervetting and Traditional Background Checks.

Information . . . Cybervetting Traditional background checks

Sources • Search engines • Government agencies (e.g.,Sex Offenders Registry,Federal Election Commission,Criminal Records)

• Social network sites

• Aggregators

• e-commerce• Virtual worlds• (Micro-)blogs

• Consumer reporting agencies(e.g., Credit Bureaus)

Types • Age • Credit information

• Interests/hobbies • Criminal records

• Political views • Political donations• Relationships • Vital records

• Relational/familial status

• Sexual orientation

Access • Individually determined• Restricted• Corporate privacy

policies

• Institutional/organizationalpermission required

• Individual notification andapproval required

ConstructionandManagement

• Informal • Formal• Emergent • Institutionalized/legislated

• Due process requirements

Goals forInformationConstruction

• Individually oriented • Collectively oriented

• Social; and/or • Public records

• Personal/private • Institutional records


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et al., 2002), and information aggregation (Solove, 2008). It is not just job

candidates, but also other people and technologies, that create, share, order,

and compile information—often for purposes other than employment (boyd,

2007). Even if individuals restrict access to social media sites, impressionsare shaped by “friends,” physical attributes (Walther et al., 2008), the design

of online spaces (Back et al., 2010), and the (unintentional) aggregation and

information visibility of the technologies themselves (Zuboff, 1989). In con-

trast to credit reports or criminal background checks, most online information

is created via informal, emergent processes (boyd, 2007) without due pro-

cess. Even if individuals attempt to manage online information, data frag-

ments often remain after removal attempts (Solove, 2008), sources may

refuse to remove information, and information may be broadcast further thanexpected as networks are more expansive and visible than people realize

(boyd, 2007). Consequently, employers acquire information candidates may

not have intended to share with them or to share in that way (Solove, 2008).

Such information is desirable for those trying to get a sense of candidates’

real identities (Berger & Douglas, 1981) although it may not always be as

credible as often believed.

Information acquired online is reconfigured based on the algorithms of the

particular search engines or aggregators (e.g., Bing™ produces differentresults and differently ordered results than Google™. Because cybervetting

occurs asynchronously and remotely, information becomes temporally and

physically decontextualized from its original context. Even if the information

acquired was framed appropriately for its originally intended communicative

context and audience, employers likely recontextualize job candidate infor-

mation given personnel selection goals because evaluators’ embodied context

and evaluative intent shape attributions (McGlone & Pfeister, 2009).

Decontextualization and recontextualization affect evaluations as communi-

cations intended for other audiences and contexts are filtered through indi-

vidual differences (Mayfield & Carlson, 1966; Metzger et al., 2010) and

professional norms (Cheney et al., 2009). Given that research demonstrates a

lack of interrater reliability for popular offline selection strategies (Mayfield

& Carlson, 1966), it is likely such effects will be amplified during cybervet-

ting because information cues often become more salient and attributions

more extreme in distributed contexts (DeAndrea & Walther, 2011).

Yet, employers rarely consider the implications of their information-seek-

ing practices. Employers often assume expertise enables accurate evaluations(Miron-Shatz & Ben-Shakhar, 2008). However, consistent with satisficing

and common information-seeking heuristics (Metzger et al., 2010), employ-

ers stop searching after quickly reviewing initial search results (Berkelaar et

al., 2014). Negative information is rarely verified (Jablin, 2001) and is often




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decisions involve other people, we deliberately sampled a diverse set of

occupational roles across organizational levels: HR personnel (9) and HR

directors (6), hiring managers (12), recruiters (7), directors (4), team mem-

bers (3), owners (2), executives (2), and an employment lawyer (1).We recruited participants from diverse industries. Because norms differ

across worker classifications (white-collar, blue-collar; Cheney et al., 2009),

differences in the types of workers recruited could affect online information

acquisition and use. Participants represented consulting (3), financial ser-

vices (8), government (1), K-16 education (8), law (2), information technol-

ogy (6), manufacturing (2), media/communication (4), non-profits (5),

recruiting/staffing (6), service (2), utilities (3), and entertainment (2) indus-

tries. The count of industry type is greater than the sample size because some participants listed their organization as bridging multiple industries.

Data Collection

The first author recruited participants using purposive, snowball sampling to

help identify information rich, key informants, who could offer insights of

theoretical interest and were willing to discuss sensitive topics (Charmaz,

2006). We contacted initial participants primarily via cold calls and profes-sional contexts, recruiting a few via social media. Our intent was to create

different recruitment chains as disconnected from the researchers as possible

to mitigate limitations of snowball sampling. We initially targeted HR per-

sonnel and recruiters. We expanded levels and roles as potential characteris-

tics of interest (e.g., industry, organization size, type, organizational role,

occupation) emerged from the data. After each interview, participants were

asked whether they could recommend people who might offer different per-

spectives. We contacted subsequent participants based on whether they

seemed likely to help refine and test emerging themes (Charmaz, 2006).

Our semi-structured interview protocol allowed us to gain unexpected

insights while focusing the research on a central topic of interest (Charmaz,

2006). The first author initially asked participants to describe personnel

selection experiences and types and sources of information used. She then

asked about interpretations and evaluations made using online information.

More than half of the participants spontaneously described their use of online

information for personnel selection. Besides asking for examples of specific

situations, the first author probed for types and sources of information and therelevance of such information for personnel selection as needed. Given

cybervetting’s debated legality and ethicality and many organizations’ pro-

tection of hiring practices as proprietary (Shilling, 2009), we included indi-

rect and hypothetical questions known to increase response rates and accuracy




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for sensitive questions (e.g., “Can you tell me about someone who . . .”;

Charmaz, 2006). With participant consent, all interviews were audiotaped,

transcribed, and verified against recordings for accuracy. Interviews aver-

aged 54 minutes (range: 30-90 minutes), for a total of 38.7 hours recordedand 682 single-spaced transcription pages, along with more than 300 pages of

handwritten field notes, and 12 pages of typed notes for three corrupted/poor-

quality recordings. After 40 interviews, responses seemed to be replicating

earlier participant responses. To verify this assumption, the first author inter-

viewed five additional employers, and we discussed emerging results with

experts. These processes helped confirm our conclusion that the data were

saturated (Lindlof & Taylor, 2010).

Data Analysis

As part of a larger project, this study focused on how employers reported

using online information for personnel selection. A separate analysis exam-

ined employer and applicant data on information ethics and an emerging digi-

tal social contract (Berkelaar, 2014). For this study, we relied on systematic

inductive and abductive data analyses (Ezzy, 2002). Taking a constant com-

parative approach informed by sensitizing concepts (Charmaz, 2006), wecompared and contrasted each subsequent interview with what had (not)

emerged previously. We used Atlas.ti™ to memo throughout data collection

and analysis. We noted emerging themes, codes, and ideas suggested by each

interview. On our first reading, we recorded initial thoughts and reactions

paying particular attention to how participants reported identifying and eval-

uating applicants’ online information. We attended to the information types

acquired and interpretations and valuations employers constructed.

After initial coding, we reread and recoded data; ran reports of all coded

items, including surrounding text to retain context; and then grouped codes

into initial axial groupings, reevaluating occurrences of the themes in the data

set based on new groupings. We generated alternative groupings to question

our initial assumptions and to test and evaluate emerging codes: We sorted,

disassembled, and reassembled the codes multiple times, independently, col-

laboratively, and in conversation with experts (Charmaz, 2006). During this

process, we noted how participants evaluated different types of information

in terms of absences and presences. Once confident we had identified promi-

nent themes, we reread the data, coding for additional occurrences and testingthemes by identifying negative cases. For example, initial uses of technologi-

cal information seemed isolated to people working in technology industries

or roles. After rereading the data, it became evident that people used techno-

logical artifacts to evaluate job candidates across industries and occupations.




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To validate findings, we conducted member checks with participants from

different companies, industries, and levels (Lindlof & Taylor, 2010) and con-

sulted with content and method experts. Furthermore, we provided interview

examples and excerpts to enable readers to judge the credibility of our analy-sis (Charmaz, 2006).

Findings

We focus on how employers report using the presence of visual, textual,

relational, and technological online information combined with the

absence of expected online information to construct and evaluate careers

and employability. These data show how employers’ evaluations andexpectations replicate and shift conventional personnel selection processes

(Table 2).

Employers’ Reports of Cybervetting

Consistent with prevalence surveys (e.g., Cross-Tab, 2010), the vast majority

of employers directly acknowledged cybervetting. Although the remaining

participants denied cybervetting, all participant responses, except perhapstwo, described behaviors consistent with cybervetting (e.g., “doing a quick

Google check”). Overall, cybervetting processes tended to depend on partic-

ular job search characteristics and employers’ habits. Most participants

reported cybervetting “interesting applicants” soon after receiving résumés;

cybervetting was deferred, when applicant pools were large. A few partici-

pants reported cybervetting at multiple stages (e.g., for screening interviews

and to inform final decisions). These were often people who reported rela-

tively detailed online exploration (e.g., following “rabbit trails” to see “where

the information led”). Consistent with habitual Internet use (Bohn & Short,

2009), participants generally referenced cybervetting in an off-hand manner

describing how “you just go online” and “Google them or whatever,” “you

know Facebook them and such.”

Although their responses suggested some engagement in cybervetting,

HR personnel reported discouraging cybervetting and generally considered

cybervetting an anomaly outside their control: “You’re always going to have

that 1% who was burnt previously by somebody who fooled them” using

conventional selection strategies. Such denials might address cybervetting’slegal uncertainty or another reason not evident here. Yet, these employers’

reports illustrate that online information—whether present or absent—affects

job candidate evaluations.




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Table 2. Online Information Employers Report Using for Personnel Selection.

What information How used

Present or visible online information Visual • “Definitely Pictures”

• Illustrations • Avatars • Site design

• To disqualify because of “redflags”

○ Red flags are not limited tosalacious information, vices,or illegal activity; they maysimply be “unprofessional”

○ Employers rarely validateaccuracy

Textual • What, how, and amountwritten, including:

• Spelling and grammar • “Textspeak” • Online content (e.g., blogs,

forum posting, pins, statusupdates, tweets, websites).

• Email addresses

• To qualify or disqualifycandidates in terms of character,professionalism, writtencommunication skills

• To assess whether people had asingular passion aligned with theposition

Relational • Connection to same people • Industry and roles of

connections • Number of connections • Demographics of connections

• To assess and/or verifyreputation and trustworthiness

• To evaluate relevant socialcapital

Technological • Ways people usedtechnologies

• Technologies used • Timestamps • Settings • Participation indicators (e.g.,

counts of postings, responses,community ranking)

• To qualify candidates whoparticipated in “relevantprojects,” received highrankings, and/or aligned withprofessional expectations

• To disqualify candidates whovisibly engaged in “a lot” ofleisure activities, who did notuse adequate privacy settings,or who did not appear fullycommitted to work

Absent or invisible online information

• Lack of professional or work-related information online

• Lack of regular participation inforums related to occupation

or job • De facto or functional

invisibility from having popularname or sharing name withcelebrity

• Primarily to disqualify candidatesduring later stages, especiallywhen compared with otherwiseequally qualified candidates

• Not limited to social mediapositions

• It might not apply to peopleconsidering covert occupations




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Evaluating the Presence of Different Types of Online

Information

As they constructed images of job candidates’ competence, character, andmotivation, employers recontextualized and evaluated the presence of infor-

mation types online. Visual images tended to be more salient, often salacious,

disqualifiers, whereas employers reported using textual, relational, and tech-

nological information to qualify and disqualify candidates.

Visual information. When asked what information they sought online, partici-

pants consistently responded “definitely pictures.” More than 90% reported

using online photos to evaluate job candidates. Although photos tend to beexcluded from contemporary U.S. applications, employers have used other

visual information previously.

Visual cues such as attractiveness or attire as well as “choice of font” and

paper “matter” to evaluations of professionalism (Lair et al., 2005) and exper-

tise, although effects may disappear for exceptionally qualified people

(Dipboye et al., 1975). These data indicate a shift in focus. How applications

looked used to be “such a big deal [and] unfortunately folks had to finagle a

lot with fonts and looks and stuff.” Now standard online applications “strip”

previously used visual cues for professionalism as online forms “force” peo-

ple to “conform” to standard fonts and formats. This automation removed an

“easy indicator” of professionalism and “now just kind of takes the focus off

that [formatting] to really focus on the content.” In place of abstract format-

ting cues, participants reported using online images to evaluate whether can-

didates met baseline expectations for professionalism.

Typically, participants used online photos to disqualify candidates who

evidenced the “problematic” “red flags” of popular media reports (e.g.,

Eaton, 2009). Employers disqualified applicants who posted photos of“inappropriate” and “lewd” behavior, “pictures of them doing drugs or

something like that,” or “naughty pictures, or . . . habitual, ‘I got drunk this

weekend,’ kind of pictures and those kinds of things that would not reflect

well.” More than a third of the participants used euphemisms to describe

“photography that has raised my eyebrows.” A few others—including a

recruiter who did executive-level hiring—offered more detailed examples,

disqualifying people for “inappropriate” photos involving “nudity” or

“sticking your tongue down somebody’s throat and posting that pictureonline.” Less salient, but repeatedly noted, were photos of “unprofessional

behavior” where the person “wasn’t the kind of person I would want to work

for me.” Such evaluations applied culture-specific symbols as unvalidated

heuristics to simplify evaluations. Even when prompted, no participant




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reported confirming whether the negative information was accurate or

“belonged” to the job candidate (e.g., pictures of candidates drinking from

“red Solo™ cups” indicated “excessive partying” or “underage drinking”

whether or not candidates were of legal drinking age or drinking non-alcoholic beverages). In sum, participants reported using notable presences

of “questionable” online information to quickly disqualify applicants from

executive- through entry-level positions.

In contrast to the frequent, often specific, descriptions of image-informed

disqualifications, employers did not offer examples of images that would

qualify candidates, although a few suggested it might be possible. As exem-

plified by one manager, job candidates would rarely benefit from online

information because “the Internet provides more of the red flags. I’m not surethat it becomes the capstone that sells anybody.” Only two participants con-

sidered the possibility that visual information might qualify candidates for

further review. However, they provided vague examples, juxtaposed with

more specific negative information:

I’d have certain things highlighted or flagged if they disturbed me, or if I found

them impressive. I’d still put all the info in front of the execs. If they had just

commissioned a wide search and I found someone, ah, you know, with boobie

pictures up, I would definitely not put that person in front of them . . . I would

hope that recruiting takes, you know, the average sales or customer service

person just as seriously.

Not only does this example illustrate how employers flag information that

might contribute to evaluations, it also suggests expanding professional

expectations for workers across organizational levels. Employers may now

cybervet “average” candidates for entry-level sales and customer service

positions as well as more prominent upper-management positions that have been conventionally held to higher information visibility standards.

Moreover, the specificity and preponderance of negative examples report-

edly used to disqualify candidates demonstrates the continuing salience of

negative information during personnel selection (Jablin, 2001). This is

likely because these employers reported using images to avoid “risk” and

“minimize costs.”

When making sense of online artifacts, employers consistently recontex-

tualized information through an employment lens. Thus, even if a job candi-date’s behavior might be considered appropriate for a picture’s original

context or intended audience, employers disqualified candidates whose

online information violated norms for employment audiences or contexts. “I

wouldn’t hire them,” participants repeatedly asserted:




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If they leave something on their Facebook account that they shouldn’t have

there and they know who I am and . . . that I’ll be able to see that stuff, they’ve

made a decision that impacts their job rather than me making a decision that

impacts their job.

Thus, employers expected applicants to be aware of cybervetting and employ-

ers’ evaluative perspective, even as employers themselves abdicated responsi-

bility. Instead, employers placed responsibility (and blame) on candidates:

Evaluations depend on applicant behavior (“they’ve made a decision”)

because applicants should be aware of employment audiences (“know who I

am”). Employers did not consider how their communicative involvement or

cybervetting’s covert processes affected evaluations or whether visible online

records provided sufficient or accurate indicators of identity or employability.

Yet, these descriptions demonstrate how employers communicatively de-

and, then, recontextualized applicant information. Participants decontextu-

alized online information—failing to consider intended contexts and

audiences. Simultaneously, employers recontextualized through contempo-

rary frames of “professionalism” (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007). Moreover,

employers consistently articulated the socially acceptable “party line” that

protected information (e.g., age, race, pregnancy status) would not be con-

sidered. Participants emphatically asserted that even if they acquired irrele-

vant information, they could exclude it from evaluations—“I can ignore

it”—despite findings to the contrary (Miron-Shatz & Ben-Shakhar, 2008).

Thus, in contrast to offline sources, online information provides access to

different visual cues, often during early stages of review, thereby altering

what informs early impressions.

Textual information. Employers did not exclusively focus on salacious vices

or illegal behavior. Three quarters of the participants described using textualinformation to construct and evaluate images of job candidates. Employers

reported using online textual information to evaluate written communication

skills, professionalism, character, motivation, and passion.

Given that employers continue to rank written communication as a top

skill (Graduate Management Admission Council, 2014), it is unsurprising

that employers used online information to assess writing skills. Participants

repeatedly noted how online sources access “everyday” writing in contrast to

formally edited cover letters and résumés considered subject to extremeimpression management. Participants reported examining various writing

contexts online to efficiently “construct a picture” of applicants’ career poten-

tial regardless of job: “I look at their writing. I look at how they write online.

I look at their blogs. I look at their Facebook. I look any place where they’re




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writing online.” Such information provides access to the “everyday interac-

tions” (e.g., email, text, memos) that dominate many employees’ work.

Employers also reported using textual information to construct and value

applicants’ professional image. How as well as what and how often applicantswrote mattered when making sense of candidates’ professionalism. Emphasis

on spelling, grammar, and formal English presumably evidenced levels of

professionalism, attention to detail, and suitability for employment. In par-

ticular, a subset of four employers who did not text or use social network sites

themselves expressed greater concerns about writing than those who reported

using a broader range of media. As one manager emphatically maintained,

I really cannot stand typos, and I don’t like it when people type in—jargon isnot the right word—but just the shorthand that people use . . . the one who does

write out all the words and is kind of maybe a little more like me and kind of a

freakazoid about that kind of stuff . . . if they’re more well-spoken than the

others in writing, that’s a plus.

As illustrated above, employers assess job candidates’ careers through their

own expectations, habits, and perceptions. They often adopt offline commu-

nication standards for online communication practices, although research

suggests offline and online contexts are not necessarily analogous (Williams,2010). Even when probed to describe situations in which “shorthand” (text-

speak) might be appropriate, “good writing” standards of formal spelling and

grammar either added “a plus” or presumably subtracted from the value of

particular workers’ careers. Moreover, evaluations often depended on

homophily as they elevated the character of people “a little more like me.”

Thus, in addition to assessing written communication as a skill, employers

also constructed and morally judged professional identities based on written

language: “So, on a probably more potent note, spelling acumen, grammar,use of pejorative terms on profiles . . . you don’t want to hire people, who you

know for a fact, have no moral or ethical standards.”

Consistent with offline selection (Jablin, 2001), employers did not con-

firm negative online information, despite its easy construction or communi-

cation by other people or technology. Employers’ confidence in their initial

impressions (e.g., “you know for a fact”) likely derived from their reported

assumptions that the Internet offered insights into “the whole person,” trust in

their expertise and intuition (Dipboye, 2014), and pressures of “limited time.”In addition to evaluating skill, professionalism, and character, employers

constructed a sense of job candidates’ mission and passion using textual infor-

mation. Participants reported using the frequency and (perceived) amount of

time someone spent writing about a particular subject online. How much and




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how often a person wrote about a particular topic operated as a proxy for moti-

vations. When assessing content created by or about applicants, employers

noted that online information provided access to individuals’ core passions or

drive: Online, “you” can learn “tons about their true interests and hobbies,[plus] often times I can tell if someone has too much time on their hands.” Such

examples evidence employers’ assumptions that people have a singular pas-

sion, and should choose and do work in it (Berkelaar & Buzzanell, 2014).

Some reported specific examples where they did not hire or promote people

who had visible online information about “incompatible” non-work hobbies.

Moreover, employers consistently suggested that visible “free time” should be

spent doing something worthwhile from employers’ perspective (“not that

Farmville game”) otherwise candidates’ motivation would be questioned.Unlike visual information, textual information sometimes helped qualify

rather than disqualify job candidates, particularly in white-collar work.

Employers ascribed greater professional commitment to candidates who had

online evidence of work-related behavior outside work times and spaces

compared with those who did not. Participant responses suggested that the

“right” online information could add value and help discriminate the “good”

applicants from the “best.” As one IT recruiter exemplified,

[I want to see their] life outside of the interview, see if they are trying to help

others in the support forums . . . [It’s] the final endorsement . . . If there’s

nothing there, why would I want to hire them over someone else . . . if you’re

using that as just kind of a gauge of what a person is doing with their life, it’s a

good thing to do.

In essence, textual information provided a way for employers to assess

“what a person is doing with their life” to see whether their work was more

than “just a job.”Although these descriptions seem to initially suggest that employers tally

positive and mostly negative online information to form their evaluations,

this is not the case. A few participants acknowledged how the broader eco-

nomic context affects evaluations of online information. Three participants

noted employers’ willingness to “compromise” professional expectations if

candidates address crucial skill shortages. For example, one manager reported

how programmers with “in-demand” skill sets could “misspell words and . .

. still get jobs” despite persistent critiques about “atrocious” communication.As an employment lawyer reiterated,

You know, when there’s 4% unemployment, employers might not have as

much luxury to just turn down people for stupid reasons; but when there’s 10%




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unemployment, they do because there’s a whole bunch of other people waiting

for that job.

Thus, the economic context—or perceptions thereof—moderates onlineinformation’s effect on evaluations.

Relational information. Who someone knows has long been a factor for getting

a job (Granovetter, 1973). What is different with cybervetting is that online

sources, particularly social network sites, make larger, and often different,

connections within applicants’ networks visible in new ways. Even as people

leverage online connections to find jobs, these data indicate that employers

also use relational associations to verify credentials, competencies, andcharacter.

Just under half of these employers reported using visible relational infor-

mation to verify social capital and trustworthiness. For example, almost one

third of the employers provided explicit examples describing how they hired

candidates because of rich and deep online networks: “He got the job

because he could just log into LinkedIn and show us his network there, all

those people . . . and his connections to me.” Particularly in jobs such as sales

and recruiting, or positions involving leadership or customer service, rela-

tional visibility legitimated expertise and access to the “social capital” needed

to be a successful employee.

Employers also reported using visible networks to assess the trustworthi-

ness of applicants’ character or reputation. The visibility of a candidate’s net-

work provided employers a way to “find people I trust that are already a little

more verified.” Visible connections to the employer (i.e., “connections to

me”) increased confidence in a candidate’s character and provided a “form of

reference check.” In addition, visible connections to key people across rele-

vant industries established trustworthiness and enhanced reputational evalu-ations. In one example, a recruitment manager used applicants’ visible

connections to (re)present the candidates as “well-connected professional[s]”

to the “high profile employers” who were their customers. Employers did not

question the nature of the relationship between visible connections, the moti-

vations leading to the connections, or the connections not visible online.

Rather, employers intuited that “I can quickly see” how “close” a candidate

is to influential or desirable contacts, assuming that the existence of connec-

tions with positive others offered votes of confidence.

Technological information. More than half of these employers constructed a

sense of job candidates using technological information. How people used

technologies and what technologies they used were central to employers’




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constructions and evaluations of candidates’ competencies and character.

Employers have used technological cues previously. For example, typewrit-

ten application forms communicate a higher level of professionalism, skills,

and/or commitment than those completed by hand. However, online sourcesof information allow access to more and different forms of technological

artifacts.

These data illustrate how employers used technological artifacts to evalu-

ate candidates’ work ethics and skills, often in non-work contexts. New tech-

nologies make artifacts of non-work behavior more visible. In these data,

applicants with visible artifacts of leisure were often devalued or disquali-

fied. For example, games on social media sites leave time stamps and other

activity indicators on status pages (e.g., “[Name] just bought a cow.”).Employers often questioned the motivation of candidates who played these

games—or simply participated in Facebook itself. As exemplified by one

manager, “If you are on Facebook all the time or playing those games, what

are you doing with your life?” Thus, technological artifacts left by game

playing presumably indicated lack of motivation as employers emphasized

the need for applicants to be “solely focused” on finding work.

However, if technological information aligned with employers’ expecta-

tions, it could improve evaluations. This was particularly evident during laterstages of personnel selection or when employers sought passive applicants.

Employers ascribe “professionalism” and “visible expertise” when they view

candidates engaged in ongoing participation in “relevant projects.” Employers

often extrapolated expertise and professionalism from the number of postings

and responses and any other indicators demonstrating a posting’s popularity

or usefulness:

You can see [online] if they’re involved in, like, open-source projects, to see

how they deal with collaborative efforts. If you’re looking into some of thenewer technology, like cloud computing, you can see if they’ve got expertise in

that or what their thoughts are or are they more traditional in their programming

or are they comfortable learning new things and working outside the box and

exploring.

Positive evaluations of job candidates were amplified when community

members or aggregators offered high rankings, thereby validating a candi-

date’s value. Employers thus used visible involvement in online forums toascribe candidates’ occupational philosophy and competence level using

rankings and indices from other users and technologies to validate

assessments.




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Although the topic of cybervetting lends itself to discussions of privacy,

these employers rarely considered privacy during these interviews except

when evaluating professionalism. Half of our participants evaluated job can-

didates’ professionalism based on their privacy settings. As exemplified byone recruiter, “This particular guy . . . happened to have a public Facebook

page, which I found extremely weird. So I automatically start judging and

thinking he must be a voyeur or something, right?” Such assessments were

prominent in, but not limited to, situations involving hiring or recruiting IT

professionals. Employers emphasized that “nothing is private” online even if

settings are at the highest level or items are deleted. Why? Because “technol-

ogy fails” or settings change revealing information people believe to be

secure. Even as they acknowledged the limits of technological privacy set-tings, most employers considered failure to use them as a “testament to per-

sonal stupidity,” “irresponsibility,” and indicated a lack of overall

“professionalism”—even if no problematic information was disclosed. As

one manager argued, questionable information compounded questions about

candidates’ professionalism: “If they would post that out publicly and not

turn on the privacy settings, what are they going to do at my company?”

Thus, employers expected candidates not only to manage what is technologi-

cally visible online but also to signal intention to manage information online.Overall, employers used the presence of visual, textual, relational, or tech-

nological information to make sense of job candidates—sometimes to quickly

disqualify (i.e., visual information), and at other times, to consider whether

candidates should be qualified or disqualified. Throughout this process,

employers placed responsibility on candidates to manage their online infor-

mation. As outlined in the next section, such expectations required job candi-

dates to manage not only online information visibility but also (de facto)

invisibility.

Evaluating the Absence of Expected Information

In response to popular media reports, many job candidates restrict online

accounts, remove potentially offensive information, and otherwise do their

best to digitally scrub problematic information, going so far as to deactivate

or delete accounts (Eaton, 2009). Their concerns are not unfounded. Surveys

(Cross-Tab, 2010) and these data confirm that employers reject applicants

based on red flags: “Really and truly I think they’re looking for dirt, youknow? They don’t want to hire the one that has the pictures of the parties and

those types of things. They’re looking for the more responsible ones . . .” Red

flags lower evaluations.




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Unfortunately, these data also suggest that removing or hiding online

information may lower evaluations. Valuation of any asset—including one’s

career, employability, or reputation —depends on the visibility of informa-

tion. Just as lacking a credit history lowers credit scores, these data suggestthat lack of visible online information negatively affects employability

assessments. Almost half of these employers expected candidates to have an

online presence, noting that the absence of online information lowered evalu-

ations: “If I’m at the very end of the search and I’m trying to decide between

three candidates who all seem fairly equally qualified, that [relative presence

or absence] might help me make that final decision between those three.”

Thus, employers not only evaluate candidates based on what online informa-

tion is present , they also evaluate candidates based on absent informationthey expected to find.

Visible online presence is particularly but not exclusively necessary for

people in certain occupations. For example, job candidates for communica-

tion or social media positions clearly benefited from demonstrating visible

rather than reported expertise as one creative director vehemently asserted:

“If they have nothing online, it is clear that this is not the career for them.”

He went on to provide examples from a recent search where the final candi-

date was chosen because she was the only one with a substantial online presence:

I mean if you want a job in Internet marketing, you should have a face out

there, for sure, somehow. You know, make yourself a blog, make yourself a

web site, put yourself on social networking sites, but do it professionally.

Thus, unsurprisingly, digital presence is necessary for people who want to be

employable in occupations with clear connections to social media or the

Internet.Yet, it is not simply social media jobs that require digital visibility.

Employers across industries offered specific examples where they disquali-

fied candidates because expected online information was missing. One man-

ager considered lack of regular online activity evidence that the position did

not align with the candidate’s “one, true passion,” what this manager believed

necessary for establishing the organization’s “competitive advantage.”

Especially when juxtaposed with the presence of information about leisure

activities, the absence of expected work-related information disqualified can-didates. Interplays of presences and absences are evident in another execu-

tive’s talk about how one worker’s blog “clearly” demonstrated interest in

baking. The executive went on to represent this individual’s hobby as indica-

tive of a “bad fit” as she was “clearly interested [in] a different passion.”




21/30


Thus, employers disqualified candidates who were absent online or who were

not present in expected spheres.

In general, these employers used the absence of expected information to

construct a sense of job candidates as less committed. They did not consideralternative explanations for information absences. They situated their assump-

tions of visibility in contemporary notions that equate visibility and transpar-

ency with honesty. Indeed, the majority of these employers argued that job

candidates should be unconcerned by cybervetting if they have “nothing to

hide,” a phrase repeatedly used by these employers to justify cybervetting.

By framing themselves and/or cybervetting as honest and straightforward

and implicating those who hide or remove information as less honest or ethi-

cal, employers may reflect a naïve understanding of the potential for misin-terpretation. This also may arise from having a “boring,” more “normal,” and

“less decorated life”: “I don’t know how I would feel if I was someone who

had, you know, a colorful lifestyle . . . You know, someone with a story [e.g.,

‘biker chick,’ ‘gay/lesbian’]. Would I feel differently? Maybe I would.” Like

this director, participants may feel as though they “have nothing to hide”

because they conform to dominant social norms.

Thus, although these employers advised digital scrubbing before job

searches, their responses also indicated that attempts at digital clean slatesmay be detrimental. Not having an online presence creates information void

during evaluation processes, which may be as much of a liability as having

red flags. Not only is expertise defined through visibility (Treem & Leonardi,

2012), our data suggest job candidates might also need to communicate inter-

ests and passions for specific types of work to be considered valuable in the

marketplace.

Such need for a digitally visible career is complicated by “information

noise.” To be valuable, desirable information needs to be clearly linked to

particular applicants. For people with popular names, information about peo-

ple with the same name can create de facto or functional invisibility—or

potentially problematic misinformation. Although it is beneficial to disasso-

ciate from red flags, candidates need to be visible when seeking employment

or promotions. Unless people work diligently and have access to IT expertise

and resources, it is difficult to make their names, and associated information

stand out from the professional athletes, beauty queens, show dogs, semi–pro

wrestlers, and others with whom candidates report sharing names (Berkelaar,

2010). Moreover, employers did not express concerns that information might be inaccurate or might not refer to candidates under scrutiny—rather, their

focus seemed to be on minimizing any possible perception of negative effect

to their organizations because of online information that seemed to be con-

nected to particular individuals.




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Discussion

This study contributes to communication and personnel selection research in

two ways. First, by examining what information employers report acquiringonline and how they indicate making sense of acquired and “missing” infor-

mation, we help explicate cybervetting as a new tool for employment sense-

making (Table 2). Employers’ use of easily accessible secondary sources and

unobtrusive observations aligns with research on information seeking (Berger

& Douglas, 1981; Case, 2012; Treem & Leonardi, 2012) and personnel selec-

tion (Dipboye, 2014; Jablin, 2001). However, cybervetting differs in how it

leverages increasing information visibility to expand contexts, times, and

roles considered during selection and associated impression management.

Empirically examining cybervetting answers calls to consider everyday per-

sonnel selection (Dipboye, 2014) and to explicate when, if, and how online

and offline processes align (Treem & Leonardi, 2012; Williams, 2010).

Second, in light of increasing information visibility and other technology

affordances (Treem & Leonardi, 2012) undergirding cybervetting, we show

how cybervetting offers a useful context to examine contemporary assump-

tions and expectations about work and careers and the contested, changing

nature of contemporary professionalism and employment relationships.

Although new technology affordances have been explored within conven-tional organizational boundaries (e.g., when using organizationally spon-

sored or developed tools and/or within paid-work times, places, or roles;

Treem & Leonardi, 2012; Zuboff, 1989), this study examines how cybervet-

ting expands personnel selection beyond conventional time–space–role

boundaries of paid work. In highlighting how information visibility and

expectations thereof appear to be reshaping personnel selection, our data

suggest that employers now expect, acquire, and make sense of more—and

oftentimes different—non-work information during personnel selection.Specifically, cybervetting further erodes boundaries between work and non-

work in ways similar to, yet beyond, fuzzy work–home boundaries (Golden,

2013). Thus, cybervetting offers a context in which to address calls for

research on redefinitions of what counts as work and non-work in the digital

era, including how familial, civic, personal, and professional identities are

constructed, promoted, and evaluated (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007; Gregg,

2011).

Although our study provided access to employers’ sensemaking of appli-cants’ online information, our approach and sample size limit generalizability.

Despite gathering data from diverse industries, organizations, and roles, we

cannot make claims about potential occupational, cultural, or demographic

characteristics. Future research should consider different occupational or




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organizational scenarios. For example, individuals interested in working for

clandestine organizations or occupations requiring discretion (Scott, 2013)

might benefit from online invisibility. Further ethnographic and experimental

work could identify differences between what employers report and what theydo. For example, direct observation that includes think-aloud protocols

(Jääskeläinen, 2010) could illuminate how employers construct job candi-

dates’ professional identities when cybervetting as compared with, or in com-

bination with, conventional practices. This would enhance understanding of

contemporary constructions of professionalism, employability, and employ-

ment relationships from employers’ perspectives.

Theoretical Implications

This study illuminates how cybervetting and the information visibility and

collapsed spatio-temporal contexts undergirding it are changing the assump-

tions and everyday work of personnel selection and impression management

and expanding these practices into non-work life. Such extensions increase

sociotechnical and communicative demands for employers who cybervet and

for current and potential employees who now need to digitally curate their

professional image. Employers expect qualified job candidates to consciouslyand consistently construct an online professional presence across time, space,

and (role) contexts previously excluded from personnel selection. At the

same time, job candidates are increasingly distanced from these sensemaking

and sensegiving processes (Weick, 1995). Because employers extract infor-

mation during cybervetting, workers lack many of the cues used to adjust

impression management and sensegiving (Hogan, 2010) in the more interac-

tive if asynchronous exchanges of conventional personnel selection. Because

cybervetting often involves acquiring information intended for, created by,

and/or aggregated by other people and technologies, workers often only learn

about and can monitor online information after the fact (Hogan, 2010). This

distancing is motivation for, and an effect of, cybervetting.

Thus, this study shifts attention from more episodic information exchange

and meaning-making processes (Dipboye, 2014) toward persistent develop-

ment and management of a relatively new phenomenon that we label digital

career capital , which builds on Inkson and Arthur’s (2001) notion of career

capital—the competencies, identities, motivations, and relationships provid-

ing career value. Drawing on our findings about how employers value appli-cants using information presences and absences, digital career capital extends

earlier perspectives by emphasizing the importance of making career capital,

and thus employability, digitally and persistently visible. Rather than focus-

ing on visible employability during active job searches, workers are expected




24/30


to cultivate enduring shows of competence, professionalism, and connected-

ness across any sources employers might use. As part of this process, workers

are expected to fulfill growing expectations to view and enact work as one’s

singular passion (Berkelaar & Buzzanell, 2014).Such expectations require sophisticated impression management skills as

people work to develop and manage the stable, desirable, schema-compatible

image (Goffman, 1959) employers desire during early sensemaking (Weick,

1995). Cybervetting highlights how individuals’ sensegiving and impression

management need to take into account physical and temporal distance as well

as information reordering and recontextualization. Even as research in online

impression management provides clues into how people leverage different

technological affordances to manage online impressions, such research oftenfocuses on particular platforms (e.g., Twitter™; Marwick & boyd, 2010) or

agreed-upon role contexts (e.g., supervisors and supervisees managing

impressions using organizational technologies; Erhardt & Gibbs, 2014).

Moreover, although research suggests that employees working at a distance

increase their use of impression management tactics (Barsness, Diekmann, &

Seidel, 2005), it is not clear whether and how impression management tactics

increase when individuals do not or cannot identify (and therefore do not

respond to) specific audiences and/or discrete (sets of) impression manage-ment situations. Researchers do not fully understand how impression man-

agement works when people need to manage the multiple roles, context

collapse, and other-sourced information implicated in cybervetting, although

Marwick and boyd’s (2010) Twitter study provides early insights. Future

research should explore the ironic likelihood that awareness of cybervetting

will extend career-oriented impression management into online contexts (see

Lair et al., 2005) originally considered desirable because of their perceived

lack of career-related impression management.

These data suggest that employers’ cybervetting demands workers’ life-

long attention to and mindfulness about how digital artifacts might be per-

ceived and reassembled by employers. As employers engage in sensemaking

about information acquired or found missing through cybervetting, they

attempt to locate individuals across time, space, (role) and context (Maclean,

Harvey, & Chia, 2012) often appealing to agreed-upon assumptions of what

constitutes the professional or professionalism (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007).

Before becoming job candidates and paid workers, individuals are now

expected to prioritize workplace standards and expectations in online com-munication. Such asymmetrical expansion of work interests is consistent

with empirical (Golden, 2013) and conceptual (Deetz, 1992) research on

work–life boundaries and arguments that organizational socialization may

happen earlier than often assumed (Berkelaar, 2013). By considering workers




25/30


as extensions of organizational brands (Edwards, 2005), employers who

cybervet validate all visible information as contextually relevant fodder for

employability sensemaking—including leisure activities and digital artifacts

from childhood. Given the implications for women, minority, and less techni-cally savvy workers, the potential for differential career effects and need for

further research are substantial.

Practical Applications

At least two possible applications emerge from this analysis. First, employers

need to consider how cybervetting’s communicative and information conse-

quences shape effectiveness of personnel selection practices. Employers cur-rently rely on intuitive, communication-as-transmission processes because of

time and resource constraints and the risks and pressures of failed selection

decisions—because “when you’re tired, cold, and hungry, any old map will

do” (Anacona, 2012, p. 6). Researchers could help employers adapt evidence-

based selection strategies to meet cybervetting’s temporal and habitual con-

veniences and employers’ needs for outcome accuracy, while also attending

to the practical ethics of cybervetting.

A second pragmatic implication involves quandaries between applicants’need to simultaneously manage present and absent information online and

“positive” and “negative” digital artifacts that could affect employability.

Although people have habitually monitored their professional image

(Goffman, 1959), digital impression management and information curation

involve relatively sophisticated communication strategies. Making relevant,

audience-valued information visible demands attending to the Internet’s col-

lapsed contexts, myriad authors, temporal demands, artifact decontextualiza-

tion and recontextualization, and invisible audiences (boyd, 2007). However,

cybervetting offers few, if any, and mostly ambiguous, longer term cues for

workers (e.g., repeatedly not getting the job), with little ability to self-correct

as retrievable deletions might prompt questions about the “authentic” person

(Hogan, 2010; Marwick & boyd, 2010). Moreover, non-work goals, relation-

ships, and narratives (boyd, 2007) necessarily compete with professional

images workers want to create when seeking employment.

Conceptualizing cybervetting as a problem to be redressed through train-

ing that “fixes” people who do not fit the ideal worker image precludes chal-

lenging assumptions of what indicates competence; what skills, commitments,and roles are (de)valued; what is useful and ethical from multiple standpoints;

and variations within and among social identity groups that might be prob-

lematically interpreted. To handle such quandaries, educators and researchers

should work with employers and workers to make visible potential strategic




26/30


alignments of organizational and individual interests while reconsidering the

ethical implications of centering the professional as anchor for digital identi-

ties. Future research can offer insights into ascertaining what, how, and why

certain online information might and should be curated in ways that addressorganizational bottom lines and that befit individuals’ complex identities.

In conclusion, findings show that different technological affordances and

shifting information characteristics may affect organizational processes and

outcomes, and in turn individual lives and social norms, in various ways.

These findings highlight how present and absent information intersect with

employer expectations to inform contemporary employability evaluations,

and how (potential) workers now face the need for digital information cura-

tion even when they are not actively seeking a job.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,

authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,

authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was partially funded by aBilsland Strategic Initiatives grant sponsored by Purdue University.

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Author Biographies

Brenda L. Berkelaar, PhD, Purdue University, is an assistant professor of communi-

cation studies in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at

Austin. Her research centers on work and career, with a particular emphasis on the

ways new technologies shape how we understand and practice work and career.

Patrice M. Buzzanell, PhD, Purdue University, is a professor of communic

Documents

Online Employment Screening and Digital Career Capital