A study just published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology (“Social Networking Websites, Personality Ratings, and the Organizational Context: More Than Meets the Eye?”) found significant correlations between Facebook profiles (including content of posts, photographs, and number of friends) and five personality traits particularly important to employers: conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience.
This indicates that evaluators can reach independent agreement as to personality-related phenomena posted on Facebook. The results also show that the evaluators exhibited an acceptable degree of internal consistency reliability. Together, these results suggest that evaluators trained to assess participant profiles can provide reasonably reliable estimates of Big Five personality traits from SNWs [social networking websites].
Particularly relevant is the use of SNWs in employment selection, as an increasing number of HR practitioners are using SNW information to aid in decisions made at early stages of the selection process, though little formal research has been published focusing on the substance or measurement qualities of such information.
Read the full paper here.