Newsflash: Facebook is now getting serious about businesses and competition, as it starts rolling out job postings and application features.
What’s more interesting is that Facebook is going to be offering its services for free. Here’s what we know so far: Employers will be able to post job openings for free, and candidates will be able to apply, using pre-populated forms that will be sent via Messenger. As far as we know, there is no limit to the number of job openings that employers can post.
There are two significant thoughts that stem from this move. First of all, Facebook will be delivering this service mainly via Messenger. This is consistent with the social network’s plan to make Messenger the single meeting point for all communications – either personal or professional. With this update, Facebook also opens a direct channel of communication between employers and prospect candidates, cutting out the middleman, aka the recruiter.
Is this is a good approach? There are pros and cons, as with all things. For one, recruiters offer an added layer of filtering, keeping spammy or irrelevant CVs out of the loop. However, this may only be a temporary strategy for Facebook which might or might not offer more features for recruiters, further down the line.
The second most important point is that this is a direct slight against LinkedIn. Yes, these two platforms differ significantly, but let’s not forget that LinkedIn lives by selling job postings and promotions, as well as recruitment opportunities.
In my opinion, Facebook is primarily looking at SMBs, as it currently has over 50 million businesses on its platform. With the latter conducting their day-to-day operations and advertising primarily on Facebook, it makes sense for them to try to find affordable ways to recruit new talent.
[box]Read more: Job Hunting In The Age Of Social Media[/box]