Back in 2011, Facebook and the U.S. Government entered into a partnership to help get America back to work. The social network teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor in an attempt to decrease the country’s then-9.1% unemployment rate by giving its 900 million members access to tons of free job search advice content produced by the Labor Department. Job search advice is helpful, but if people need jobs they aren’t necessarily always reading blogs because they’re too busy reading job descriptions. This is where it works out beautifully for Facebook – give the country what it needs, build partnerships with the Department of Labor, while simultaneously entering a billion-dollar market that is begging for innovation.
Who’ll Be Affected and How?
Job boards: existing job boards would be the most impacted by a Facebook job site. Sites like Monster and Careerbuilder, once giants in the online job search space, have seen a rapid decline in member activity and profits over the last few years, and a Facebook job board boasting over 900 million users might be the final nail in the coffin. The only way these companies can come out alive is if Facebook enters a partnership in which it aggregates jobs from, say, Monster’s database, thus giving its paying job posters a more open network of job seekers, and viral job sharing.
It’s possible something like this could happen. Sites like Monster and Careerbuilder are notorious for partnering up with other websites in order to offer more exposure for their jobs, and Facebook is going to need a backlog of data to hit the ground running when it actually launches its job board. Even so, we must not forget how Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg typically operate. There is a good chance that down the line Facebook will want to go completely independent and cut out these employment boards — ultimately putting them down for good.
The Staffing Industry: Staffing Social Media is extremely important for a staffing firm. A Facebook job board would be a huge jolt to the staffing industry. This job board would help drive traffic to a staffing firm’s web site. Recruiters and staffing companies all post jobs on sites like Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed, and Craigslist; having a new job board with as many members as Facebook will be just another place to post your jobs, with probably even more success. Facebook will probably let you hyper-target who you want to see your jobs, much like it does with its ad network. For those who haven’t used Facebook ads, Facebook gives you data based on what people fill out in their profiles, which allows you to pinpoint your ideal audience. Any time you post to a job board, the real work involves sifting through the masses of unqualified applications to find the two or three fits. This could all be eradicated through a Facebook job board. Additionally, remember that this is FACEBOOK. Your job postings will have the chance to go viral, and will increase the probability of referrals — a word that we in the staffing industry are very fond of.
Staffing Marketing Departments: Facebook brand pages are a must-have for all staffing companies looking to connect with their consumers. When it comes to talent acquisition, most marketers or page managers leverage the “tabs” function as another source to promote their company’s open jobs. The jury is still out on just how effective a jobs tab is on a brand page, but having branded job ads on a central Facebook job board is a huge opportunity for generating new business. Not only can you count on it being a high traffic area, but think back to when you were on your job search and learning about all the companies you’d never heard of before, but now know. Imagine the potential you could now have with a job board of almost a billion members, any of whom could stumble upon a job that links to your brand page, which in turn can drive traffic back to you staffing web site. You just earned yourself a “Like” and a potential new customer or client. There could be endless potential for marketing on this new job board.
Make sure your marketing team is on it! Make sure you have a staffing inbound marketing plan.
Still unsure if you need a staffing social media plan or a staffing inbound marketing strategy? Contact us and put our staffing expertise to work for you.
To read the entire article, by Justin Miller click here http://www.ere.net/2012/07/27/its-not-linkedin-whod-be-burnt-by-a-facebook-job-board/
