11.14.14 Using Facebook for Screening
We've been pulling up applicants on Facebook for quite some time. We look to see if there are photos with pets that aren't declared, extra children that aren't declared, talk about drugs or guns, negative comments about a current move out or rocky employment situation, lots of cussing, really dark posts or links, and any possible indication in photos of cleanliness/housekeeping standards. You can learn a lot if the applicant hasn't set privacy settings on their account.
Even if they have set privacy settings, you can still see some photos, and you have access to who their Facebook friends are. Looking for mutual friends – with you (good) or with known problem people (bad), can give some valuable clues.
I've noticed a few things in my low income rental market. There seems to be a population of people in our city who have been heavily involved in drugs in the past. They are currently on the fringes; not quite employable, very little safety net; one foot trying to live a better life and one foot still in the drug culture.
So there is this guy who is active on Facebook. I’ll call him Kevin Bacon, in honor of the Six Degrees algorithm. He has a very distinctive lamb picture as his profile photo, so he is easy to spot. He posts a lot on our local FOR RENT Facebook page. I private messaged him about our recent opening. He message me for awhile, fell off the face of the earth for 2 weeks, reemerged and was gung-ho to rent our unit. Attempts to e-mail him the application were unsuccessful (two different addresses bounced back), so he made an appointment to pick up an application, and was a no show. Fairly typical on our scale of flakiness.
What was interesting, though, is that when I was looking at his Facebook pages for clues about him, I noticed that he is Facebook friends with our recent tenants from hell and another existing tenant that I suspect is just barely holding on to her unit. I thought about offering that he could speak to either tenant to find out more about us, but decided that we should not disclose that we are watching his Facebook page.
As we got new applications in, we started to look to see if they were friends with Mr. Kevin Bacon, and half of them were! He has 350 friends. It seems to be a pretty good litmus test to see what crowd they run in. So far it has just been amusing, but I am seriously considering taking points off on our screening process if applicants are friends with Kevin Bacon. Our newest tenants are not friends with him, that feels good.
Low income landlording in a smaller town (population 37,000) is entertaining if nothing else.
Comments (6)
I know of people who change their social media names to avoid being viewed by hiring managers, etc. Smart move on the and smart move on you as well.
Chaz Reid, about 9 years ago
Wow, I will have to start doing this as well! Great idea!
Frankie Woods, over 9 years ago
I look at Facebook as well. Another reason is to see if the name the person gave me as "current landlord" is one of their friends.
Dawn Anastasi, over 9 years ago
Dawn do you accept friend requests from tenants? I have only been asked a couple times and declined. I don't want my tenants having that kind of access to my business. After all, they are sometimes the inspiration for my posts. They would probably not be amused.
Jeff Rabinowitz, over 9 years ago
No I do not share my FB profile publicly. I use it only to communicate with my family members and a few close friends. I don't even check it all the time.
Dawn Anastasi, over 9 years ago
Great add, Dawn!
I do not accept friend requests from minors, employees, or tenants, and I've checked my FB privacy settings. I'm transparent with a lot of stuff on the Internet, but want people to have to work a bit to get at it.
Michele Fischer, over 9 years ago