To help small businesses with the hiring process, Facebook announced its “Jobs” tool connected with Facebook Pages roughly a year ago in the U.S. and Canada. This week, the company announced an expansion of the program to over 40 countries, allowing small businesses all over the world to post job openings and job seekers to apply directly on Facebook.
With 2.2 billion active monthly users currently using Facebook, this new component extends the reach of SMBs when it comes to finding qualified workers. Additionally, small businesses have said that hiring is one of the biggest internal challenges they face.
Facebook’s Vice President of Local, Alex Himel, writes, “One in four people in the US have searched for or found a job using Facebook, but 40% of US small businesses report that filling jobs was more difficult than they expected. We think Facebook can play a part in closing this gap.”
For job seekers using desktops, the dashboard is available on facebook.com/jobs, while mobile users can find them by opening the ‘Explore’ section and clicking on the Jobs icon in Marketplace. The tool has evolved since its release to include creating job posts on mobile, managing applications and the ability to schedule interviews.
When users apply for a role, they can create an application that automatically populates with past job history and other relevant information pulled from their Facebook profile. Applications can be edited prior to submission, and businesses will only be able to see what’s provided, as well as what’s shown publicly on their Facebook page.
After a user has applied, a Messenger conversation is automatically generated on the business’ Page that provides direct contact with the employer. Users will see an alert once their information has been received, and they can choose to set up alerts for jobs in their field.
For small businesses, this avenue provides a quick, simple and cost-effective way to attract talent. Page administrators can create jobs posts directly from their Facebook Page that includes relevant information (job title, job type, salary, etc.). These posts will then appear on the business’s page, on the Dashboard and within Marketplace. Jobs can also pop up in the News feed, and businesses have the option to boost each post (for an added cost), increasing the likelihood of it reaching their target audience.
Along the same lines as this, Google had released Google Hire last year which was an integration with G-Suite that helped SMBs track the hiring process. These moves are examples of how technology and SaaS providers are broadening offerings for SMBs to everything from hiring and HR, to marketing and supply chain management. (Tracking this shift in the SMB market is the objective of the LSA’s Tech Adoption Index initiative.)
