A new service, which provides a background search across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, can reveal a candidate’s on-line personality and help firms avoid making damaging recruitment mistakes.

CrewRevu™ CV reports, showing job candidates’ social media activity, have been launched in the UK and Europe following their successful release in the US last year.

The firm says its background search reports fulfil an increasing need for employers and applicants and also background research companies to be on top of Internet postings. These can sometimes severely damage career prospects.

For example, ex-youth police commissioner Paris Brown was found to have made sensitive and potentially discrimatory postings on her social media accounts.

CrewRevu, developed by San Diego-based software developer Featherbrooke Inc, says it conforms to UK and European data protection laws because reports are applicant-driven and filter potentially discriminatory information.

Recruiters get a view of the broad range of a candidate’s interests and participations to enable a better fit with the job they have applied for.

Candidates can also use the tool, as the report clearly details all their postings, so they can then revisit social media sites and edit or delete comments as appropriate then paste a link to their report in their CV for employers to see.

Featherbrooke CEO Kevin Potter said: “Social media content provides valuable information that can improve hiring results. But employers are caught in a catch-22.

“Either they don’’t use social media, which may create workplace risks and negligent hiring liability, or they Google job applicants and expose their company to potential discrimination claims when they view protected information.”