Over the last couple of weeks I have had many recruiters in my social media classes and every time they focus all their attention on LinkedIn as a recruitment tool. When I come to Facebook, they seem to be shutting down. It seems they do not take Facebook seriously as a recruitment environment. Maybe, they should think again.
One reason is that there are over 880 million people on Facebook vs the 147 million on LinkedIn. Secondly, more and more companies are active through a fan pages on Facebook and using it for employer branding. Fan pages allow much more flexibility and functionality to companies and recruiters than the LinkedIn Company pages.
And then there are several applications that have started to give LinkedIn a run for its money. They listen to names such as Glassdoor, Beknown, Talent.me and BranchOut. These apps bring LinkedIn functionality to Facebook making it the next best environment for recruitment.
Glassdoor is a free jobs and career community that offers the world an inside look at jobs and companies. Using the Inside Connection product lets you find companies and what connections inside you might have. Additionally, you can find interview questions, salary ranges, company reviews, and job openings. In true social media style the content is generated by the job seekers.
Beknown is a Facebook application by Monster. There is a lot similarity between Beknown and LinkedIn: create a profile, you connect with people, get recommendations, find jobs, and follow companies. Beknown will let you see the 1st and 2nd line connections like LinkedIn. As you accept people in your network, you earn badges like in Foursquare.
Talent.me is a professional networking app on Facebook which answers the questions where your friends worked and who your inside connections are at companies. The goal of Talent.me is to help you leverage your friend network and make it work for your career advancement. You can also endorse your connections and build communities around specific talents. This social media network seems to be very US focused.
And finally, there is BranchOut. On BranchOut, users leverage their Facebook friends to find jobs, find sales leads, recruit talent, and setup relationships with your professional contacts. BranchOut also operates the largest job board on Facebook with over 3 millions jobs in 60 countries. Recruiters from all over the world are joining BranchOut and taking advantage of lower priced recruitment packages to find and attract new talent.
Of course, LinkedIn is still the standard when it comes to recruitment, but I am convinced that Facebook will take over very soon. Today, it seems that BranchOut is the forerunner but it is still early days.