Original post by Kaitlyn Brown via ExactSource
Facebook recently rolled out its new Social Jobs app, sparking a lot of discussion on whether professional networking giant, LinkedIn, is headed for trouble. Although Facebook wins with more active users – an astounding 1 billion to LinkedIn’s 131 million members – It’s important to remember that quality and quantity are two very different things. Before we go condemning LinkedIn to a fate similar to Myspace, it’s important we understand the vast difference between the recruiting capabilities of these two prevalent social networking platforms.
Recruitment Tools
Let’s start by looking at the actual recruiting tools each site has to offer. Facebook’s current job application gives job seekers a central location to search for jobs – sorted by industry, location, and skills – that are already available through other job sites such as Monster.com, Jobvite, and BranchOut. Although Facebook job seekers now have access to more than 1.9 million jobs through this application, its features are very limited. It’s essentially just a job search engine. Other than posting jobs through one of the affiliated job sites, there’s really no feature to help recruiters scope out the right candidates. Facebook proudly announced that half of employers in the U.S. use Facebook during their hiring process – which only works after they already have the names of their contenders. However, when it comes to finding these candidates to begin with, Zuckerberg can’t be of much assistance.
On the other hand, LinkedIn Recruiter – the company’s enterprise recruitment tool – has much more to offer. Recruiter allows you to search LinkedIn for profiles based on certain skills, education, and background. Last month, LinkedIn rolled out a new feature in Recruiter that will help bring hiring managers and recruiters warm leads. Millions of LinkedIn users are now following the companies that interest them. Some are looking to hear about new products or to stay current on company news, but 70% of surveyed followers said their first and foremost reason they follow a company is to hear about career opportunities. Recruiter is now allowing hirers to zero in on these groupies and filter though the users who fit the role they’re looking to fill. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is an invaluable channel in discovering hidden talent – people who weren’t necessarily looking to be found. As far as recruitment tools go, I’d say LinkedIn wins this battle by a landslide.
Looking for a job? How about looking for manpower? You’re in luck, the World’s biggest TechStartupJobs Fair is back in London! In February, we will be hosting our job fair!
