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.

New Online Recruitment Training Dates Announced

Our free online recruitment training sessions have just gone nationwide. As I look at our Eventbrite account we have 36 events taking place between now and March. Starting in Birmingham tomorrow.

If you want to find out how to recruit for free via social networks like Linkedin and Facebook. Or maximise your return on investment when you post adverts to job boards. We run our half day sessions to between 12-20 direct recruiters at time and we have had some really positive feedback so far.

Here is a full list of dates and a short video giving an example of just one of the tips we look to give away in the session.

FREE Training Sessions Start Tomorrow

After a successful pilot of our online recruitment training sessions, we have decided to roll out a new series of events.

You can see the schedule for these events here.

The feedback from the candidates who attended the first series of sessions can be seen here.

The aim of the sessions is to unlock some of the secrets of online recruitment. We openly show you how we use job boards, linkedin, CV databases, job board aggregators, twitter, facebook etc to source candidates in the most cost efficient and time efficient manner. It's also an excellent opportunity to hear how other direct recruiters are currently approaching these issues. A full list of the course content can be found here.

It's a half day session totally free as long as you are a direct recruiter!