Facebook has more than 65 million businesses using its Pages product, boasting that it’s cheaper and more sociable than maintaining a website. For the most part, companies have all that they need including marketing and interacting with their customers. But what about when it comes time to grow and bring on more employees? Having an human resource-like component didn’t really exist on Facebook so the social networking company built one just for Pages.
Rolling out over the next few weeks, Page admins in the U.S. and Canada will be able to post jobs right on Facebook and receive applications through Facebook Messenger. In doing so, the company has taken a swipe at LinkedIn, where job opportunities have long been its domain, but the target audience could be vastly different.
Job postings isn’t exactly new as it was introduced last fall as part of a test. Facebook declined to state exactly how well it performed, but it must have at least met expectations to be widely released. “Today we’re taking the work out of hiring by enabling job applications direction on Facebook. It’s early days but we’re excited to see how people use this simple tool to get the job they want and for businesses to get the help they need,” said Andrew Bosworth, the company’s vice president of business and platform, in a statement provide to VentureBeat.
Whenever a business has an open position, they can use Facebook to post the notice. Page admins will create a job post using the Page composer and include details like the title, whether it’s full- or part-time, salary or hourly wage, and more. After publishing, it will appear as a standard post within the Page feed and also in a special “jobs” section. For those that have “liked” or followed the Page, like other posts, job listings will appear in the general Facebook News Feed. Postings will expire within 30 days.
If you’re interested in working at a company and find a listing that suits you, just tap the “Apply Now” button and submit an application. Facebook will populate the document with your name, job history, and other information pulled from your public profile, which can be edited before submitting. This could be a play to encourage users to provide the social media company with more information about themselves to not only improve ad targeting, but make other products more useful.
Applications are submitted through Facebook Messenger, leveraging the platform that was first introduced in 2015. From there, communication can take place through the chat app or be taken to email. Interestingly, the former may appear unconventional at first, but engaging applicants using messaging tools is increasing — if you can talk to businesses using Facebook Messenger, why can’t you do the same with applicants?
Many Pages are used by small businesses, so there’s a likelihood of job openings being around part-time work or employment where you’re not necessarily working in an office. That could be Facebook’s distinguishing feature against LinkedIn. But if corporations and larger businesses wish to use Facebook, they’ll need to adapt to the new workflow because as of right now, there’s no way to integrate with applicant tracking systems like Workday, Taleo, or LinkedIn. But Facebook probably believes its reach can help improve the reach of businesses more than new age HR systems because after all, there are more than 1.86 billion monthly active users.
These roles are also going to be very targeted as well because the people that may apply have already expressed an interest in the business by liking the Page. And this works for companies with multiple locations such as coffee shops. For example, Philz Coffee has several locations in downtown San Francisco, but I always stop by the one near VentureBeat’s office. I might be inclined to like that specific location’s Facebook Page and if I happen to find myself looking for new opportunities and recognize Philz Coffee as having a good culture and work environment, I might find myself wanting to apply there because I’m already a fan of their Page.
Facebook may suggest that this was in reaction to people already using the social network to connect and find jobs, but it also could lead to additional revenue since businesses could also leverage Facebook’s advertising tool to market open positions, targeting them to specific demographics.
Job listings on Pages are rolling out now to admins and job seekers in the U.S. and Canada, but there are plans to expand to other countries. It’s supported on both mobile and the web.
