Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg chats with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference | Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Could Facebook soon rival LinkedIn as a job-recruitment tool? A Wall Street Journal article says it could be possible sooner rather than later. Facebook’s presence as a recruiting aid is still minimal; however some companies are increasingly embracing the access to more than 750 million users on Facebook as a way to circumvent pricey job boards.
Jobs2Web, a recruiting strategy firm, says Facebook could come to rival job board sites as early as next year. Monster.com’s vice president of product management also noted Facebook’s rise as a space for recruiting. "While I wish every company used Monster, social is a solution that many people are using," Matthew Mund of Monster said. In June, the company rolled out its own Facebook app, BeKnown, and already has 800,000 users.
Facebook’s appeal is also its largest obstacle in becoming a mainstream recruitment tool. Some say potential job candidates are likely to respond positively to job referrals passed on through Facebook connections, but LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner told the Wall Street Journal he believes users want to avoid just that sort of private-professional line blurring. Focus groups of prospective job candidates at Adobe Systems confirmed this aversion to mixing the two, saying they were strongly opposed to being contacted through Facebook about job opportunities.
