How Do Job Seekers Respond to Cybervetting? An Exploration of Threats, Fear, and Access Control

Abstract

The cybervetting activities of potential employers present a significant threat to job-seeking social media users because their content becomes vulnerable to unwanted access and scrutiny. Without control over access, personal information may be gathered from social media and used in ways that harm the job seeker. Access control is a critical element of information privacy that has not received much attention but can help explain individuals' privacy behaviors. We use a protection motivation framework and a fear appeal to examine how job-seeking SNS users respond to cybervetting. We analyze the responses of 375 job-seeking SNS users to understand the relationships among threat perceptions, fear, coping responses, access control, and intention to implement and use an ephemeral application. We argue that when confronted by cybervetting, job-seeking SNS users are favorable toward using an ephemeral application because it bolsters privacy and meets the psychological need for control over access. Our results show that access control moderates the fear response to cybervetting, it is prompted by users' coping responses, and it helps explain why response efficacy and self-efficacy are predictive of behavioral intention.