Facebook is Looking to Help You Find Your Next Job

You're Hired

Facebook will soon help users apply for local jobs in more than 40 countries. The functionality has been available to users in the U.S. and Canada since 2017 and now users from countries like the U.K., Spain, and Brazil will also be able to join in on the job seeking fun.

 

Moving forward, Facebook will let you schedule interviews and post job ads that will be visible on mobile, all features that weren't available before. And if you are looking for a specific type of role, you can set a targeted alert.

Marcelo Ballvé, vice president of intelligence at research firm CB Insights spoke with CNN about how this expansion could help Facebook encroach on territory firmly controlled by LinkedIn, a social media site for professionals. He said: "this could be a threat to LinkedIn if a generation of folks gets their first jobs through Facebook and begins to identify the platform as the go-to labor marketplace."

Check Your Privacy Settings

People use Facebook to chart their personal life, and they go on LinkedIn when they need a job or want to expand their professional network. Most potential employers will run a quick background check on Google anyway, digging up tweets, public Facebook posts and that embarrassing, ten years old blog.

But officially turning Facebook into a job searching platform is likely to blur the boundaries between people's private and public life even further. For those who cannot resist the temptation to post something employers shouldn't see, privacy settings remain the strongest protection — albeit one still poorly understood by many.

And as it prepares to steal LinkedIn's users, Facebook wants to make sure future jobseekers are fully aware of the extent of their digital footprint. "What you do today could still be accessible to people in the future and could be relevant to your job searches down the road," the site warns. "Be aware of the longevity of your digital footprint and the future impact of the decisions you make today." In other words, if you ever plan to look for your next job on Facebook, make sure that those compromising photos from your uni pool party are private, or just delete them altogether. You probably don't need them anyway.