Cybervetting: on the way to acceptance

This study examines a relatively new phenomenon of cybervetting from a job seekers’ perspective. This practice has been studied within multiple frameworks over recent years – cybervetting and its relation to privacy, employers’ perspective on cybervetting or selfpresentation and cybervetting. The current study incorporates most of the issues and fulfills the gaps present in the previous academic literature on the topic. The first point is that it addresses the group of people aged 36 and older, previously understudied. The second point is that the perspective of job seekers, previously understudied as well, is explored in more details. The third point is that the actions undertaken by the job seekers’ as a response to the possibility of being cybervetted were not covered within the previous framework and are brought up in the current research. The last but not least point is that the practice, becoming widely used in Russia, however has not still received any attention in the academic literature. Which is why the main research question of the paper is “How do practices of managing social media differ among younger and older Russian job seekers once they are aware of a possibility of being cybervetted?” Drawing from a series of fourteen in-depth semi-structured interviews collected from job seekers aged 18-35 years old and 36 years old and older, the conclusions about job candidates’ perspective on cybervetting were made. The research does not provide the evidence for existing difference between age groups, which is why the findings are similarly relevant for all the job seekers from a sample. It was discovered that Russian job seekers do not frame cybervetting as privacy violation, thus they do not express a negative attitude towards it. However, their attitudes may be described as positive, neutral and undecided. The first means a complete acceptance of the practice and high value attached to the results of using cybervetting. The second focuses more on acceptance of this practice by people and their willingness to change the strategies of online behavior if needed. The respondents from the third group, having an undecided opinion, see both – strong advantages and disadvantages of a practice, and cannot decide for themselves, which ones prevail. In general, the practice becomes more accepted by Russian job seekers, and they do not consider employers informing them about it a necessity. Moreover and most importantly, two strategies of managing online space as a response to the possibility of being cybervetted were discovered – preventive and ‘ex-post’. The first one stands for initial caution in social networks and posting details that could not compromise a person in the future, while the second one describes the situation when users delete information once they are aware of the possibility of being cybervetted and think that their online profiles may be seen as inappropriate.