Study: Job Candidates Pay a Price for Speaking Freely About Mental Health

There are signs that progress is being made toward shedding the stigma surrounding mental health in the workplace.

For example, recent research found that training programs focusing on low-intensity psychology interventions for mental health conditions inspire workers with mental well-being challenges to seek the support they need. (The same report also found that such programs can significantly cut down on employee sick time.)

Another new study, however, suggests there’s still plenty of work to do on this front.

Published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, the study conducted by a pair of North Carolina State University researchers sought to determine how posts related to mental health on LinkedIn affected perceptions of an individual’s personality and performance in the workplace.

While noting that it’s increasingly common for people to discuss mental health issues on social media platforms like LinkedIn, the researchers found that sharing such disclosures can affect employers’ perceptions of job applicants.

“People are often encouraged to discuss their mental health struggles on social media with the goal of reducing the stigma associated with mental health challenges,” said study co-author Lori Foster, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State, in a statement.

“We think reducing stigma around mental health is extremely important, but our study suggests that mental health posts on platforms such as LinkedIn could have unforeseen consequences for people disclosing their mental health challenges.”

Shaping Future Perceptions

More specifically, the study authors found that such disclosures “can influence the way people view us in professional contexts,” added Jenna McChesney, first author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Meredith College, who worked on the study during her time as a graduate student at North Carolina State.

For the study, Foster and McChesney enlisted 409 professionals with hiring experience. About one-quarter of these participants were shown the LinkedIn page of a job candidate, with no mention of mental health challenges. Another quarter were shown the same LinkedIn page, but including content that mentioned the candidate’s experiences with anxiety and depression.

The same number viewed the LinkedIn profile and heard an audio interview conducted with the candidate. The remaining participants heard the audio interview along with viewing the LinkedIn profile that included the post pertaining to anxiety and depression. The authors asked all 400-plus professionals a series of questions about the job candidate’s personality and future workplace performance, according to the researchers.

Overall, the researchers found that study participants who saw LinkedIn profiles including posts discussing mental health challenges “viewed the job candidate as being less emotionally stable and less conscientious,” said McChesney.

“Hearing about the interview lessened a study participant’s questions about the candidate’s emotional stability, but only slightly,” she continued. “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.”

While stressing that their findings shouldn’t deter professionals from sharing LinkedIn posts about anxiety and depression, the authors also cautioned that doing so “could change future employers’ perceptions of them,” said Foster.

The findings have implications for employers as well, she added.

“When hiring managers look up candidates on LinkedIn, they risk seeing information that can color their perceptions, even subconsciously. Organizations should implement guidelines for using LinkedIn during the hiring process to encourage equitable comparisons among all candidates, including those who openly discuss mental health challenges.”