Facebook now allows businesses to post job openings on the social network, with users likewise able to apply for open positions right on the platform.
The rollout of the feature to Facebook Pages in the United States and Canada ends years of speculation that the social network will be tapping its massive user base to take on LinkedIn and other online job boards.
Facebook Enters Job Market Industry
Facebook's job opening feature was first reported in November of last year, when the beta version was still being tested. It was then revealed that job openings will be given a dedicated landing page in the Facebook accounts of businesses to differentiate them from the Careers page.
With the feature now formally rolled out, Business Pages on Facebook will be allowed to post open job positions on the News Feed through the status update composer. The job openings will then be hosted on a Jobs tab in the company's page, as promised in the beta testing of the feature.
When a user sees a job opening that he or she is interested in applying for, they will be able to click or tap on an Apply Now button located on the job posting to send an application to the company through Facebook Messenger. Facebook is then hoping that businesses and the applicants will continue with the hiring process through Messenger, including any follow-up questions to the application and setting up a date and time for an interview.
Certain details for the application will be automatically filled in from the user's Facebook data, including the user's name, location, and profile picture, to speed up the process. There will also be a text box that can fit 1,000 characters wherein applicants will be able to make their case on why they should be hired. The application will also list the user's experience and education, as pulled from the user's Facebook profile, though there is an option to edit the information in case of any mistakes or add more information to the application.
Posting job openings on Facebook is free for companies, with no limit on how many listings can be put up at a given time. The features are aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses which usually struggle to find employees to hire compared to the larger corporations. This is a particular problem when it comes to job postings for hourly and part-time workers, which is an issue that LinkedIn has so far not solved.
Facebook Challenges LinkedIn
According to Facebook VP of advertising and Pages Andrew Bosworth, businesses were already using their Pages to post job openings. However, with the new feature, it will be much easier for job seekers to find the listings and apply for them.
In addition, according to Bosworth, two-thirds of people looking for jobs are actually already employed, which means that they are not actually looking for jobs but are open to moving to another company if an opportunity arises.
With job openings on Facebook, the social network will try to capitalize on its massive user base of 1.86 billion people, compared to 467 million users for LinkedIn, in reaching out to two kinds of job seekers that LinkedIn has not been able to cater to: people who are looking for part-time jobs and those who are already employed.
