Facebook Plots World Domination – What does it mean for Online Recruitment & Social Recruiting?

I have just finished reading an interesting article, based on a presentation at Facebook’s F8 conference, about how Facebook wants to make social connections as commonplace as hyperlinks. An understandable position for the world’s largest social network to take. But what is interesting is the method they've chosen. They are making it far easier for websites of all sizes to integrate the “like” function into their site. I checked out this article on CNN and found the Facebook thumbs up symbol at the bottom of the article.




So what does this mean for recruitment?

Well I don’t think you will see this thumbs up on Monster just yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out. It does not seem such a logical leap to let your social community know you found a job you like, in the same way that if you read an interesting article, you might want to share this with your network. Your network of friends, colleagues probably have similar interests to you. Do they have the same professional aspirations, skills, experience? Seems less likely. So sharing jobs, will for now stay limited to the one-to-one option of “send this job to a friend”, rather than the one-to-many “share with network” option.

So what does this mean for the future?

Well I think I need to clarify first that I am not an expert on Facebook or Social Recruiting. But the whole point of a blog is to give your opinion and no one really knows how this will pan out.

Here is my best guess.

This move by Facebook is not aimed at recruitment, but the internet in general. That means every site you visit could potentially integrate with facebook. Leaving aside the good/bad argument, this means corporate careers sites, job boards, job board aggregators etc are all potential partners to Facebook in the advancement of its network. I believe the vast majority of recruitment sites will integrate with facebook in some fashion. It may not be a thumbs up, and many Facebook users may not want to involve their Facebook network in their job hunt, but it will be an option and Job Boards in particular will be paying close attention to how this area develops.