Facebook now takes aim at LinkedIn as it tests recruitment tools

If there were any any residual doubts regarding Facebook’s extraordinary competitive nature, they seem to have been quelled as the company sparks off a battle with fellow social media platform LinkedIn.

For the loyalties of the executives all over the world Facebook will now battle LinkedIn, as the company has begun experimenting recruitment possibilities on their platform.

Spotted by TechCrunch, and later confirmed by a Facebook spokesperson who stated, “Based on behavior we’ve seen on Facebook, where many small businesses post about their job openings on their Page, we’re running a test for Page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates.”

Facebook Pages can now share a job opening on their timeline, complete with information regarding the job title, salary offering and full time or part time requirements. A dedicated Jobs tab is where one can keep a track of the proceedings. Interested applicants can click on the Apply Now button to.

Image : TechCrunch

The Page owner will receive the job application in the form of a Message on Facebook itself, where additional discussions can be conducted through chats. Sponsored Posts have existed on Facebook for a while now, and their data of user demographics can be reapplied to show the job openings to users most likely to be interested in the opportunity.

It is a feature to feature competition with LinkedIn judging by first appearances; but what matters is how well it performs, and the adoption rate among both, businesses and applicants.

Although the two social networks have never been viewed as competitors in the past, with Facebook being the recreational social network, and LinkedIn being the preferred social network of professionals.

This is not the first time Facebook has tried to absorb or clone its competitor in the social media ecosystem. Mark Zuckerberg’s social media Hercules has previously tried to overpower a number of other platforms, succeeding more often than not.

Instagram and WhatsApp are two of Facebook’s more successful battles won, whereas the elusive Snapchat had denied Facebook twice in the past. Not taking kindly to having their acquisition attempt shot down, Facebook ended up cloning and incorporating Snapchat’s exclusive Stories feature into Instagram. Frowned upon at first, Instagram’s superiority over Snapchat in terms of user numbers guaranteed its success.

Now with LinkedIn facing a similar dilemma, could be forced to innovate in the face of competition from the social networking behemoth. One can easily draw comparisons between the current scenario through the Instagram Stories VS Snapchat Stories tussle.

Like Snapchat, LinkedIn has a certain niche audience and exclusive applications, such as being a professional social network that connects executives and is used for recruitment purposes. With a user base of more than 450 million, it is the leader in online connectivity between industry people.

Facebook on the other hand boasts of a mammoth 1.79 billion users worldwide, from all walks of life, indulging in recreational activities, and many more services and opportunities that the company keeps offering with each passing day.

There are more businesses on Facebook than there ever were, and now along with marketing and promotional possibilities, business can also avail recruiting options all on one platform, which will work in Facebook’s favour.

The second most important factor is the younger demographic who are already familiar with Facebook’s interface since they have been in college and school. If they can find a job on Facebook itself, there is very little reason as to why they would go to another platform.

Facebook’s acquisitions has provided them with an enviable database of user behaviour, geographic and demographic targeting capabilities, which will further augment their chances of leaving LinkedIn behind should the feature witness an adoption rate that makes it worth Facebook’s while.

It is LinkedIn’s turn to innovate as Facebook may soon officially unveil their recruitment feature, which could threaten LinkedIn's existence in a fiercely competitive market populated by a ruthless competitor in the form of Facebook.

Would you still prefer LinkedIn or are you looking forward to using Facebook for recruitment? Let us know at team@socialsamosa.com.