Does Facebook’s Social Jobs App Pose A Threat To LinkedIn?

Facebook has now targeted a new avenue, and more likely a new big player in this niche: LinkedIn and the job listings market online. In a partnership with the U.S Dept. of Labor, Facebook has put together the Social Jobs App, commissioned under the Social Jobs Partnership. The partnership is actually meant to create a central page on Facebook that would accumulate, list and showcase job listings on the social platform, thereby facilitating the unemployed with job opportunities and openings in USA.

The development is being hailed by many as the ‘disruptive’ technology in the growth of LinkedIn, the prominent leader in social job scene thanks to its professional networking model. Stephen Le Viet, CEO of Work4Labs, a leader in Facebook recruitment technology – is upbeat about this new upheaval of the job search mechanism that Social Jobs App is poised to bring. As an intricate part of the collaboration, he sees this as the next revolution – since the move is meant to simplify the job search for most employment seekers.

When we reviewed the layout, what struck a chord was the similar yet far simplistic design of the Social Jobs App. It is simply a pool of 5-6 major job search engines worldwide, namely BranchOut, Monster, Jobvite, US Jobs by the National Labor Exchange and Work4Labs. Akin to all job search engines, we have a straightforward job query box, with specific field for the specifics of one’s search. The best part is that there exists a radio-button that allows one to toggle between veteran-friendly and normal job listings. With the large user base that Facebook currently cradles, sure – things look utterly optimistic; but all said and done, this may not be ‘THE’ talent pooling tool for most recruiters.

What this app misses is exactly where LinkedIn operates – talent acquisition, head hunting, discretion and nondescript candidate searches, InMail service for discrete communication etc. it has been time and again seen, that recruiters in the corporate world have relied on LinkedIn and Taleo, for filling up executive and senior positions in a company. While Taleo got acquired by Oracle, it was already under the shadow of LinkedIn which is poised to overtake Monster.com in this business.

Some reports and whitepapers have also observed that Facebook was the popular place for recruiters, through career pages of each organization, when it came to recruiting fresh graduates and early career transitions in talented individuals – thanks to the informality and openness it offered in discussions. LinkedIn often has been blamed to be too mono in its communication channels. But if we are still accounting relevance to the sort of head hunting that was synonymous of corporate recruiting agencies, before LinkedIn dealt a serious blow to them – then Facebook’s Social apps sure does look to challenge LinkedIn.

However, we never know how this rather goodwill initiative by Facebook with the US Dept of Labor may snowball into something really big – especially given the observed stingy nature of most young professional when it comes to timely updating their LinkedIn profiles and networking professionally in true sense.

Image Courtesy |  techradar

Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

WATBlog is India’s Best Blog Of 2009 and is owned and managed by WATMedia Pvt Ltd a Digital Media Company that aims at being the thought leader in the space by Connecting the Web, Advertising and Technology (WAT) Industry in India.