Although it’s become increasingly common and acceptable for people to talk about mental health challenges on social media, potential employers may view job applicants in a negative light, according to new research released by North Carolina State University.
In particular, posts about mental health on LinkedIn could introduce personal information into the recruiting, screening and hiring processes and affect applicants later.
“Our findings don’t mean people should refrain from posting about anxiety and depression on LinkedIn,” Jenna McChesney, the first author and assistant professor of psychology at Meredith College, said in a statement. “However, people who are considering posting about these issues should be aware that doing so could change future employers’ perceptions of them.”
For the study, the researchers recruited 409 professionals with hiring experience to review LinkedIn pages and give their impressions of an applicant’s personality traits and future work performance.
Participants were broken down into quarters. One group was shown a job candidate’s page without posts related to mental health challenges, and another was shown the same page with a post that mentioned the candidate’s experience with anxiety and depression. A separate group saw the original LinkedIn page and listened to an audio interview with the candidate, while yet another group saw the page with the post about anxiety and depression and listened to the interview.
Overall, regardless of the applicant’s gender and the evaluator’s age, when candidates wrote about experiences with anxiety and depression on LinkedIn, this influenced hiring professionals’ impressions of the candidates’ work-related personality traits, such as emotional stability and conscientiousness, but not expectations about work performance, such as task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors.
“We found that study participants who saw the LinkedIn post about mental health challenges viewed the job candidate as being less emotionally stable and less conscientious,” McChesney said. “Hearing the interview lessened a study participant’s questions about the candidate’s emotional stability, but only slightly. And hearing the interview did not affect the views of participants about the job candidate’s conscientiousness.”
“In other words, the perceptions evaluators had after seeing the LinkedIn profile largely persisted throughout the interview,” she added.
As both employers and employees have more discussions about mental health challenges, stress and burnout, HR professionals can contribute to the conversation by determining reasonable accommodations and helping colleagues to leave stereotypes at the door.
Manager training around mental health could also be useful, especially when it comes to identifying staff members who could use help and collaborating with staff on solutions before significant issues arise, sources previously told HR Dive.
Mental health benefits appear to be on the rise, too. Recent college graduates have voiced strong support of these benefits and say they’re looking for mental health and workplace wellness benefits during their job search this year, according to a TimelyCare survey.
