Facebook Partners With Government To Launch New Social Jobs App
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Facebook unveiled its long awaited Social Jobs app on Wednesday, the culmination of its yearlong collaboration with the Department of Labor and other government agencies to help unemployed Americans find work.
“When it comes to economic growth, few issues are more important than matching qualified candidates with great jobs. In that spirit, we know that the power of social media – the connections between friends, family and community – can have an outsized impact on finding jobs,” Facebook said in a blog post announcing the new job board.
The new service connects job seekers with recruiters, and consolidates job listings with partners such as Monster, Jobvite, USJobs and BranchOut, Facebook said.
As of Wednesday, the site features more than 1.7 million job listings, which users can search by location, industry and skillset. The service allows users to apply for positions directly through Facebook, and then share the jobs to their social network.
“Facebook is all about connecting people and we’re thrilled to see developers leveraging our platform to connect job seekers and prospective employers,” said Marne Levine, Facebook’s vice president for global public policy, in a statement.
“By allowing job seekers to view and share job openings based on personalized criteria, like location and industry, the Social Jobs Application builds on our broader effort to help people use social media to find jobs in the U.S.,” Levine said.
Facebook’s move could potentially put pressure on professional-networking site LinkedIn, whose share price fell as much as 3.7 percent after Facebook’s announcement.
However, Facebook’s diverse demographics differ from LinkedIn’s 187 million members, who tend to be older and college educated. And some older employees may feel less comfortable mixing work with a social platform such as Facebook.
But the sheer size of Facebook’s user base, which now exceeds 1 billion, means the company can have a significant impact. Indeed, although just 22 percent of Facebook users are older than 45, that is still 220 million people, more than LinkedIn’s entire membership.
Facebook said it created the new app to “tap into the growing trend of talent acquisition through social media.”
The company cited a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which found that Facebook is emerging as an important factor in linking qualified jobs with qualified candidates.
The survey found that half of employers are currently using Facebook in their hiring process, 54 percent of which anticipate the social networking site will play an even greater role in the talent acquisition process in the near future.
Shares of Facebook’s stock were up 13 percent on Wednesday, closing at $22.36.
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2012-11-15 21:36:19
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112732224/facebook-social-jobs-app-launch-111512/
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