# 7 Risks of Screening Seafarer Candidates Using Social Media > Screening candidates for seafarer jobs on social media is free, quick and easy. BUT there are things to watch out for. Martide takes a look at a few of the pitfalls to help you decide whether or not candidate screening on social media is right for you. _Published 2026-06-29 · By Eve Church · Canonical: https://blog.martide.com/5-risks-of-using-social-media-to-screen-candidates-for-seafarer-jobs/_ --- With June 30th being [World Social Media Day](https://blog.martide.com/25-ideas-for-maritime-companies-on-world-social-media-day/), we thought now would be a good time to revisit a topic we wrote about back in 2019: the risks of using social media to screen candidates for your seafarer (or shore-based) job vacancies. Social media has changed drastically since our original post so we’ve given the existing article a complete overhaul and an update for 2026. Using social media in recruitment can still be a great way to find out more about the candidates who are applying for your seafarer jobs – or your shore-based maritime jobs. There are plenty of benefits to a maritime recruiter or HR manager: for example, a potential hire’s Facebook page could provide an insightful look at the person behind the qualifications, documents and seafarer resume. Plus it’s free, quick, and easy to do. BUT there are also things to watch out for when using social media to screen candidates. In addition, the conversation around candidate screening has evolved significantly since 2019 due to AI, privacy concerns, data protection laws, and changes in how people use social media. In this post, Martide looks at whether or not your small to medium sized shipping company or manning agency should screen your candidates using social media. [woman-looking-slightly-puzzed-at-laptop.png](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/de437a66-0f50-44c4-1f25-6d6986bc9e00 "woman-looking-slightly-puzzed-at-laptop.png") # Should You Screen Your Seafarer Job Candidates Using Social Media? Employers now have access to far more online information than ever before, making it easier to find information but harder to use it fairly and legally. Screening candidates on social media is popular with both recruitment agencies, and shipowners and manning agents because it gives us a glimpse into the real, unfiltered (no pun intended) lives of the people who are applying to our jobs. Social media background checks enable us to see if someone would be a good fit for our job or contract, for our company, and for the vessel and her crew. It also allows us to root out an applicant who might have the potential to become problematic after hiring them. A couple of things to note: * LinkedIn has become much more important than Facebook for professional screening. * TikTok and Instagram are now major platforms where personal content is shared. * AI tools can now search and summarize candidates' online activity. It’s true that a lot of seafarers still use Facebook to find work, especially the slightly older generation, but LinkedIn is now also widely used across the sector for both advertising maritime jobs vacancies – of all ranks – as well as searching for employment opportunities. [young-woman-using-laptop-with-passport.png](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/e423b743-cd5e-40df-fc67-4046627f9500 "young-woman-using-laptop-with-passport.png") So surely, it’s an obvious place to check out your candidates, right? Yes – but keep in mind that people are more likely to show their professional face on LinkedIn and their ‘authentic self’ on platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok. After all, no one wants to hire an Ordinary Seaman who looks good on paper but is constantly firing off racist tweets. And no matter how great that Chief Engineer’s seafarer resume is, if they have a habit of posting antagonistic comments on Facebook, they may not be the best person to keep their department’s crew members happy and productive onboard. But there are potential risks of using social media to screen candidates. Here are some of them. ## Possible Risks of Running Social Media Background Checks ### Falling Foul of Unfair Bias Maintaining an unbiased posture is crucial in recruitment in any industry. For one thing, if you do wind up being accused of discrimination on the grounds of bias against sexual orientation, nationality, religion or race and you have used social media to screen a candidate, it’s going to be a lot harder to defend your company in the face of a claim. Especially if there is evidence that other people in your organization know that social media screening is part of your recruitment process. Look at it this way: our social media accounts often include a lot more personal information than a potential employer really needs to know. And while it’s good to be able to weed out racist or bigoted candidates, do you really need to know their marital status or the type of church they worship at? [woman-thinking-about-candidate-religion.png](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/b0828367-e216-45b6-c4b2-5550d1dedd00 "woman-thinking-about-candidate-religion.png") In addition, many employers (and recruitment firms, including maritime recruiters and manning agencies) are now more concerned about the legal implications than they were in 2019, and that extends to using social media in recruitment. There’s more to think about when screening candidates using social media including how you process the personal data obtained from it. [GDPR and data protection obligations](https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/) as well as candidate consent are now very real concerns, so having a recruitment social media policy is now more important than ever. ### Don’t Believe Everything You Read (or See) We’re probably all guilty of reading something online and taking it as gospel. From updates from respected news channels to Insta pics from our best friends, it can take a superhuman effort to remind ourselves not to believe everything we see or read. The same goes for social media profiles. Just because that professional looking candidate who’s applied to one of your vacant seafarer jobs says they have all that experience and time at sea on their LinkedIn profile, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. Of course, in the maritime industry you will still need to see, verify, and upload your candidate’s seafaring documents, seafarer’s book and passport but it’s still important to take everything you read online with a pinch of salt. The key is to remind yourself that no one has verified the info you’re reading. [Just look at Instagram](https://www.boredpanda.com/instagram-vs-reality-truth-behind-pictures/?utm_source=google\&utm_medium=organic\&utm_campaign=organic) with some of its users’ carefully curated content and lifestyle images. Real? Fake? Exaggerated? Who's to say when even "Instagram versus Reality" is often trending on that same platform! [insta-v-reality.png](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/c8738c16-b32b-4e47-e133-25de2b1cd400 "insta-v-reality.png") ### Screening the Wrong Person Even the most unusual sounding names can have multiple user accounts on social media. You might be searching on Facebook for someone who has a name so strange/weird/unique that there can’t possibly be more than one of them in existence. Not usually true. Unless their profile picture on their Facebook or LinkedIn page is the same as the image they’re using on their seafarer resume or online profile, such as in [Martide’s seafarer database](https://support.software.martide.com/en/articles/11931673-what-is-the-candidates-page) it can be hard to know that you really do have the right person’s profile. So beware, if you’re using social media in recruitment because you could be judging a great candidate by someone else’s awful profile. Or vice versa. ### Falling for a Fraud We’ve covered how some people might not be telling the truth and nothing but the truth in their professional profiles such as on LinkedIn. But what happens if you’re unlucky enough to receive an application from a candidate who has gone all out with creating a totally fake social media profile? This is a fairly obvious attempt at hiding something that the user (i.e. your candidate) doesn’t want the world in general, or a potential employer, to know about. If they’ve included a link to their Facebook or X page in their seafarer resume, who’s to say that link isn’t to their ‘real’ account but to a ‘clean’ profile? It could well be the public persona that they want you to see - as opposed to the real them. [angry-seafarer-and-master.jpg](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/a550a153-bf8d-423f-cb5c-d2837f485300 "angry-seafarer-and-master.jpg") And that’s not even taking into account [the issues surrounding deepfakes](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/69009887), AI-generated content and purchased followers and engagement – all modern challenges recruiters in all industries face when evaluating online content. ### The Need to Play Fair This risk goes back to the concept of fairness and equality; receiving a candidate’s application and treating it without bias. The issue is, if you’re going to check one candidate’s social media profile, you need to check them all. It’s an all or nothing game, and all seafarers deserve to be treated equally. Again, the risk of a claim of discrimination could be higher if the team who are responsible for hiring applicants are only checking out certain candidates online. This extends to using any information found against some candidates, but not others. Another thing to take into consideration is the fact that, yes, even in this day and age, not everybody has social media. If using Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn etc. as part of your screening process is your company’s recruitment social media policy, you could be overlooking certain candidates in those checks. The knock-on effect of this is that you will be treating candidates without online profiles differently if a social media background check is mandatory - and you could be missing out on some great hires for your seafarer jobs! [candidate-database.png](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/294e6bcb-0872-4ff4-1771-192101c95800 "candidate-database.png") ### AI Can Amplify Bias Back in 2019, artificial intelligence wasn’t even a consideration when we were talking about using social media in recruitment. In 2026, that’s definitely not the case, and many recruitment tools now use AI to gather and analyze publicly available information. And while these tools can save time when conducting social media background checks, they may also introduce bias, misinterpret context, or surface irrelevant information that has nothing to do with a candidate's ability to do the job. Let’s say a seafarer doesn’t really post about their maritime career on social media, but their TikTok has a few videos of them talking about politics and current affairs in their home country, AI could be gathering that data and presenting it to you, the recruiter, as something that you may then unconsciously (or consciously) assign bias to. ### Online Content Doesn't Always Tell the Full Story Context is everything if you’re using social media to screen job applicants. That also goes for using AI to weed out information about a candidate. Whether on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram or LinkedIn, a screenshot, joke, meme, comment, or photo can be taken massively out of context. Without understanding the circumstances in which the post was made, as a recruiter, you may make assumptions about a candidate's personality, professionalism, or suitability. [laptop-with-applicants-on-screen.png](https://imagedelivery.net/MN7lylkJmHINZhrMCwblyA/4a97b8e3-25c3-410d-4af8-2397c70edf00 "laptop-with-applicants-on-screen.png") Again, it’s all back to that issue of bias, and not understanding context is a major criticism of social media screening in recruitment today. Their social media may not accurately reflect a seafarer's professionalism, safety record, certifications, or ability to work effectively onboard. #### Using Social Media to Screen Seafarers: Conclusion It would be foolish to say that the posts, tweets, photos and memes that individuals share on social media are irrelevant to an employer. In particular when it comes to recruiting for senior positions. We’ve all seen the news stories where ill-advised tweets have come back to haunt politicians, pop stars, actors and senior executives. And it’s understandable that those in charge of their company’s hiring and recruitment will want to ensure that they won’t live to regret hiring the candidates they’ve banked on. Unfortunately there’s no clear answer: social media is, and probably always will be, a double edged sword in so many ways. And when it comes to filling your vacant seafarer jobs, you just need to decide what your recruitment social media policy is if you’re using various platforms to screen candidates. To sum it up: * You need a formal social media screening policy. * You must apply the same process to every candidate. * You should focusing on job-related information. * You must remain compliant with local employment and privacy laws. ##### Martide Can Help You Find Qualified Seafarers If you’d like to remove the stress from maritime recruitment, talk to Martide today. Not only do we advertise your jobs and promote your vacancies on our [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/martide.hq/), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/martide), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/martide_com), [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/martide-jobs.bsky.social) and [X accounts](https://x.com/martide_jobs), but we’ll also give you access to our global pool of qualified seafarers. Our applicant tracking and maritime crew management software will then help you manage your recruitment pipeline, interviews, contract negotiations, and travel arrangements all the way through to the point where your seafarer is on board your vessel. Want to know more? [Contact us now](https://www.martide.com/en) and we’ll be happy to have a chat or schedule a demo. *This blog post was originally published on December 2nd 2019 and updated on June 30th 2026. *