Last week Facebook launched “Facebook Jobs” which is, in the most simple terms, a job board hosted on Facebook Business Pages. Starting now, a company like mine can quickly post a job and receive applications through Facebook. I had a couple questions about how the user experience would work, so this morning I decided to test it out.
How it works for employers
Posting a job is super simple. From my business page manager I can select “post a job” and a screen pops up with similar information to a job posting on a site like Indeed.
A couple things to note when looking over the posting. There is no taxonomy tagged to Facebook postings right now, meaning I can not tag positions by role, skill sets, experience, etc, like more advanced job boards.
Once I publish the job there is a quick approval process (it took about an hour) and the post is live.
Posting a job is super simple and free. Facebook will not charge you to post on their platform and like all services they expect to monetize through advertising.
Here is what it looks like when it shows up on my companies page:
When I decide to “boost” the post, this is where I can really start targeting and filtering candidates based on Facebook’s data. Really quickly I can try to reach college level graduates who graduated from the University of Waterloo, or who have worked at Shopify.
This, in my opinion, demonstrates the potential of Facebook’s hiring platform. Candidates exist, and waiting for them to find you on Indeed, Monster, or LinkedIn can be a tiring and lengthy process. They all have Facebook accounts, and Facebook can help you find them.
The Job Seeker Experience
I posted on Facebook earlier today asking if people would “apply to a job” with their Facebook account. Most people commenting said “hell no” and I was really interested in seeing what the user experience would be like when a job seeker applies to a job.
Turns out, the experience is pretty simple.
When you find a job you are interested in on an employer’s page you can quickly click apply. Here is my application in two steps:
Facebook grabs your work experience based on what you have entered into your Facebook profile. It does not give you the opportunity to upload your resume or attach more information, I found that to be surprising. You effectively apply to the job through Facebook Messenger, and all future communication with the company will be through messenger.
Most concerns about applying through Facebook seemed to be with regards to your potential employer having access to your Facebook profile, so let’s see what it looks like once an employer receives an application.
Here is an application Tristan sent in:
I get a text based version of his Facebook resume, and that is about it. I can click “view profile” and it brings me to a different page.
Facebook does not let me see Tristan’s account from my business account. If I want to look at his profile, I need to search it manually on Facebook, and I will only be able to see his profile based on his existing permission settings.
Effectively, the experience receiving Facebook applications with regards to information sharing is not much different than receiving an application through an existing job board and than searching for the candidate on Facebook. Facebook is not giving you secret powers to see more candidate information because you host a job on their site.
What it means
The job posting features here are simple. Facebook is leveraging their advertising platform to make it easier for employers to find candidates to fill roles. Given the scope of the features I would expect this feature to be used primarily by small businesses looking to find service level talent or employers hiring in extremely competitive industries. Even before the features launched, most tech companies already hosted job applications on their own websites and used sponsored posts to attract talent.
But I will say this, the “job board” is effectively dead. I learned this the hard way that when you run a job board you become a stakeholder looking to meet the needs of job seekers and employers. Offering a two-sided marketplace you are going to have a really, really, tough time creating value for job seekers and customers. The Facebook/LinkedIn user pipeline is just too strong.
Final thought
Facebook Jobs raises interesting ethical and moral questions. I do not see large companies using it because of existing HR guidelines. With Facebook jobs I can immediately tell the gender and race of the applicant, for example.
That said, if you are attempting to proactively hire, Facebook will allow you to proactively reach out to a specific type of candidate. I can sponsor a post and target only female engineers, for example.
This is a new feature set, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves. Right now I would say that it is an excellent and useful tool for a small business, but it is unlikely to meet the needs of a company with an HR department.
Our social networks will only continue to become intertwined with our professional lives, and it will be interesting to see how this continue to develops.
I would be interested in hearing any feedback you may have! Would you apply to a job with Facebook? Would you use it to hire candidates? Email me your thoughts jeffrey@careerjsm.com