10 ms·

Facebook rolls out job posts to become the blue-collar LinkedIn

237 points by james33 9y ago

paulie_a 9y ago
LinkedIn uselessness with Facebook creepiness™
- ryan-c 9y ago
  Are you implying that LinkedIn isn't creepy?
  - mfoy_ 9y ago
    It's not creepy, it's pushy.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      ¿Por que no los dos?
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  Oof, imagine browsing through prospective plumbers' Facebook profiles... Just adds a whole layer... of... weirdness.
- wickawic 9y ago
  I actually like LinkedIn because hey know they are the internet’s Rolodex and (more importantly) people on the site mostly use it that way. If I were pressured by society/peers to be “active” on LinkedIn in the same way we are pressured in an abstract sense to be on Facebook, it would lose all utility for me.
  - nathan_long 9y ago
    What bugs me is getting asked by people I know in a personal context to recommend them professionally. I can vouch that they are reasonably nice, but I don't know anything about their work. If I worked directly with someone and know they're good, I'm happy to endorse that.
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    To be fair they became the internet's rolodex by outright stealing your address book and sending fake invites to people on your behalf.
    - herogreen 9y ago
      And now they have put a join-wall that is hard to circumvent (erasing cookies does not seem to suffice). It is one of the reasons why I hope to never join Linkedin.
      - paulie_a 9y ago
        After deleting my account, I've had to look up a couple people recently and encountered that. My only thought is: "thanks LinkedIn for making yourself increasingly irrelevant"
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  I found my current job on LinkedIn.
whatshisface 9y ago
There's some who argue that having all of your life in one place, recorded, won't be a problem because society will be forced to shift in a more liberal direction and stop judging people. The alternative outcome is that this forces a hard crystallization around various very specific cultures, where for every community there's a list of "weird stuff that everyone does," and "stuff that gets you ostracized." So for example going to furry conventions might end up assigned to Googlers, and going to church assigned to machinists. That seems a lot more likely, given human nature.
- EpicEng 9y ago
  >society will be forced to shift in a more liberal direction and stop judging people Really? This hasn't been my experience at all. FB can be just as toxic as e.g. a youtube comment section, and what I see more often than not is people self selecting based on who agrees with them nearly 100% of the time.
  - space_fountain 9y ago
    Ops point seems to be exactly that that is the most likely outcome rather than the nicer sounding alternative.
    - EpicEng 9y ago
      Sure, I didn't mean to imply that OP was buying into it, I'm just a bit shocked that _anyone_ believes that.
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Right, but the theory (which I'm arguing against, see above), is that if economic rewards are grafted on to the social side then people will become more open so that they can become more economically successful. Youtube comments and today's FB aren't economic - there are few incentives against bubbling yourself beyond personal gratification.
    - 9y ago
thisisit 9y ago
> Meanwhile, job seekers can discover openings, auto-fill applications with their Facebook profile information And soon we will need discussion on how a job seeker is being shunned at a workplace for his/her personal views which came bundled with these auto-fill forms. I can be wrong but whenever I read stuff like these it seems to me companies, specially social networking, are running out of ideas and just scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.
- adjkant 9y ago
  Agreed. Facebook has a ton of engineers sitting around (not designers, engineers). Only so many can data mine and work on advertising, so some portion of them will look around and decide "what if we just add in random feature x from other thing y!" and eventually some get approval. It's really nonsensical from a user perspective. I can't imagine what user would ask for this. And because of the scale of Facebook, there's no penalty for this not working out. So they will just keep pushing random features and will see what sticks. See stories, their AI chatbot assistant in messenger, and I suspect this will suffer the same fate.
- aje403 9y ago
  Hopefully this doesn't stick 2 years from now. "Must apply via our Facebook listing - please have the show all photos checkbox selected" - Granted, that probably won't affect white collar workers as heavily
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    Do do believe Facebook is on it's way out, but I created a fake real-name profile to guard against a future where it's more ubiquitous and I'm expected to give others access to it.
- Kalium 9y ago
  I've seen a number of my more blue-collar friends use Facebook as a job site on and off for years. I suspect that to a lot them, this will mostly be a formalization of things they already do.
deftnerd 9y ago
No... Just no! Facebook crawls into every portion of our lives. I killed my account because of its insidious feature creep. You don't put up photos of yourself in a swimsuit at work and would sue any workplace that demanded that you show them those pictures. You shouldn't bring your political beliefs into work, and would be uncomfortable if your boss cornered you and demanded to know how you felt about the president or some tax policy. But, this is content that is often on your Facebook page. By moving employeer/applicant relationships onto Facebook, it's associating applicants personal lives into the sphere of employer consideration. It's wrong and I hope that nobody takes this seriously.
- foolfoolz 9y ago
  linked in is basically a separate facebook account with less photos and personal details. just make a new fb account for jobs with less photos and personal details the social network can only share as much as you give it, its up to you to keep that content personal and offline. i’m not a huge fan of this concept that people give tons of info to these personal dat selling websites and shouldn’t be responsible for it, it’s the companies that shoulder all responsibility. everyone should be well versed in online sharing
  - snerbles 9y ago
    > the social network can only share as much as you give it You and your "friends".
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > It's wrong and I hope that nobody takes this seriously It's wrong and I hope people take that seriously.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  I’m pretty sure I remember an article on HN a while back talking about employers demanding applicants’ social media passwords as conditions of employment, so they can go through and look for this stuff. So, in reality the applicants’ personal lives are already in the sphere.
megaman22 9y ago
Facebook is pivoting into becoming Craigslist.
- acct1771 9y ago
  Craigslist+ads, with a healthy dose of meme garbage to keep the plebs opening the tab.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Um. Craigslist is ads. (There are, yes, parts of it which aren't. But ads are the prime motive.)
    - acct1771 9y ago
      Ads in this context meaning private companies paying for placement of their brand in front of specific demographics.
      - dredmorbius 9y ago
        As is Craigslist. Though payment is only required for limited categories.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
A few months ago I turned off Facebook notifications on my phone. Then I turned off Messenger notifications. I recently deleted the Facebook app. A month ago, the Messenger app moved to page two. Two weeks ago I deleted both from my phone (still have WhatsApp) and force myself to log out when I visit on my laptop. I'm not sure this is the level of disconnection I'll remain at. (Maybe only in election years.) I do think it's a gentle enough curve that everyone should try it. When I ask friends whom, among Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix and Amazon, they trust most, the results are heterogenous. When I ask whom they trust least, it's universally Facebook. If you don't trust someone, they may not have your best interests at heart; keeping them close is like holding on to a toxic friend.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  On the meta subject of notifications: I've disabled all sounds and vibrations of my personal phone and I make frequent use of the snooze functions (either app level or os level). I feel like it's also good starting point.
  - aloner 9y ago
    I tried that for a while, but I ended up going on the app to see if there was anything new instead, it ain't really useful.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > I ended up going on the app to see if there was anything new Deleting the app makes you aware of how frequently one gets the subconscious urge to do that. (Same with logging out on the computer.) Once you add that friction, it becomes easier to become conscious of the behavior and then decide if, in a car between meetings, what you really want to do is scroll through Facebook.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  Facebook seems to have adopted the dark pattern of messenger notifications of "1" even after I have deleted all chats. Every time I open the facebook app I am alerted of a new message. I've gone so far as to file a report with facebook, but have not heard back. I assume this behavior is intentional at this point.
mr_tristan 9y ago
Great, now it's just a matter of time until recruiters start trying to contact me via FB. In which case... that will be the end of my FB usage. In less snarky terms, spam is the bane of nearly every "jobs" site I've ever seen. Since FB attracts such a wide net, i.e., not very technical and skilled folks, it will be a significant challenge to make any kind of jobs/careers feature not turn into a noise-fest as they grow it. I wish them luck.
Legogris 9y ago
I find it a bit uncomfortable with the repetitive use of "low-skill" in the article. You can actually be skillful in areas outside of STEM, finance and business.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  "Skill," in economics, is a function of training time. "Occupations that require less than 12 months of training and" have a high incidence of employees "with a high school diploma or less" were defined as "low-skill" going back to the 60s [1]. High-skill workers are expensive to make, expensive to hire and expensive to replace. The tolerable level of turnover amongst high-skill staff, to the average company, is low. (At least in comparison with low-skill staff, who can be more-easily replaced.) [1] http://web.mit.edu/osterman/www/LowWage-LowSkill.pdf http://web.mit.edu/osterman/www/LowWage-LowSkill.pdf
  - walshemj 9y ago
    And a full proper apprenticeship can take longer than a degree to earn in most cases.
k00lGr4p 9y ago
FB is getting pretty desperate these days.
sharno 9y ago
I actually like this. Linkedin is very annoying sometimes, but it gives nice exposure to the job market if you're looking for opportunities. Facebook did a great job with buying/selling stuff that matches and complements craigslist for example. This gave a lot of power to communities which don't use craigslist much outside the US. I think they can do a nice job to have people get more exposure in the job market when they need to and become a better job market than linkedin. I think we should be more pragmatic in the tools we use and just encourage the usage of better tools in the right way. Facebook is horrible as a content or social network because of our behaviour in using it as so. But they do great tools and we should fix our usage of these tools.
vinceguidry 9y ago
I read a story recently about a guy who, through sheer happenstance, managed to fix his entire life. He had gotten laid off of his job and was getting desperate. He usually picked up the New York Post and applied to the jobs he saw there. This time they were out of the Post, so he grabbed the Times. He saw an ad for a job fair. He went to the fair. The fair was practically empty, but the employers were desperate, the first recruiter he meets basically just takes his info down, tells him where to report to and when he starts. The job fair folks didn't realize that blue collar workers didn't read the Times, so that's the reason why the fair was empty. Blue collar job matching still appears to be a blue ocean and Facebook seems to be uniquely positioned to serve that market. If they can get this right, this could end blue-collar unemployment overnight.
- bduerst 9y ago
  Except in your example, blue collar doesn't appear to use the internet to find jobs or job fairs, even if they have a Facebook account. This reads like a pitch for smart devices for baby boomers. Sure it's a blue ocean, but most retirees don't use smart devices, even though they may have a cell phone.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    That seems like a hurdle that Facebook of all companies could leap if they set their minds to it. Also, there is anecdotal evidence in this very HN post of the contrary. And I think you underestimate the utility of technological aids for old people. They are using them, more now than ever.
  - briandear 9y ago
    > most retirees don't use smart devices, even though they may have a cell phone. Really would love a citation for that. My dad is 74, my step mom is retired in her late 60s, all of their church group of about 35 people — every single one has a tablet or smart phone. That’s anecdotal obviously, but this sample is a mix of retired blue and white collar people at a variety of incomes (and ethnic backgrounds.) Retired boomers are a huge smart device market from my experience.
at-fates-hands 9y ago
This is so wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. I was told for years and years to keep my business life separate from my personal life. It's actually quite scary people are going to fall for it and use this and in the process, hand over a myriad of information that should be protected, solely for the purposes of screening people based on their personal life and their choices therein. Scary, very, very scary.
- geebee 9y ago
  I share your concern. It may not happen, though. Social networks tend toward natural monopolies. Facebook may have better features and uptime than the next best alternative (or not), but either way, social networks gain most of their utility from all the people on then. So it's notable that linkedin survived this consolidation. I think this is because people want to keep their business and professional lives distinct. It's actually more than that. There's a comment lower about how Facebook is creepy, and linkedin is pushy. There's a very good reason those are the notable faults identified. Think of this scenario: a programmer goes to a business meeting with some people form ops and marketing after a conference, and they have lunch or coffee afterwards. Some linkedin invites follow. It might seem a little pushy to some, not to others, but most people (from my observation) wouldn't consider it inappropriate. It's "ok" to be a bit more direct and immediate with business contacts. The same thing with Facebook might seem creepy. I suspect linkedin or something like it will hang on precisely because it isn't a "social" network.
cs702 9y ago
In the short run, this may be a great revenue-growth opportunity for Facebook. That said, prospective employees will want to look their best for prospective employers, and vice versa, so I have a nagging feeling that the job-posting initiative will further accelerate Facebook's ongoing transition from a network of genuine profiles and social connections to a network of puffed-up, cleaned-up social resumes and necessarily superficial connections. I say "ongoing" because many Facebook profiles have already become puffed-up, cleaned-up social resumes, and many Facebook connections have become superficial links between people who may not necessarily like or even want to spend time with each other.
brickmort 9y ago
There is absolutely nothing blue-collar about Facebook.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Their users sure are.
digi_owl 9y ago
What was that line about feature creep and email again?
AndrewDucker 9y ago
I recently got some plastering/tiling done. I asked on Facebook, people recommended a tiler who had a Facebook page, I looked at the reviews there, and the photos they had posted, and then I sent them a message over Facebook Chat, we agreed a price/time, and they came and carried it out. This was all incredibly easy, and much less stressful than most times I've needed someone to do this kind of work.
blablabla123 9y ago
This is soo wrong. This will consolidate a 2 class work world. One that deserves to be on LinkedIn and one that is only present on Facebook. Even worse, those in the "lower" class even have to deal with their job life creeping into their private lives. Really stupid, everybody should have both a LinkedIn and a Facebook account.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Or neither account should be necessary to get along in this world. But you raise a good point about it having the potential for being yet another class marker.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  I don't understand this complaint. Facebook should avoid offering job advertisements because... some people won't use it out of their own choice, therefore classism? Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but I can't follow the logic. Both LinkedIn and Facebook accounts are free for anyone to create and use to their full extent. How is this service not a net positive if it gets people legitimate jobs? Is that not competition? Isn't more options a good thing?
  - blablabla123 9y ago
    I mean looking at so called Temp Work companies: in some sense they arbitrate jobs. Most of those happen to be quite low end. Speaking of Germany, when these are "hands-on positions" in big companies they compete with non-temp people. The difference is that they have worse pay, less insurance coverage and generally less say. Others already made statistics and articles about this topics. It seems the workers loose.
debacle 9y ago
And suddenly LinkedIn is dead.
Bahamut 9y ago
I sure hope when applying for a job via FB, companies do not have access to your sensitive FB information. FB needs to make clear what information they will never share with job posters.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > I sure hope when applying for a job via FB, companies do not have access to your sensitive FB information. Oh, they won't...unless they pay for the premium package.
mydpy 9y ago
This is going to kill snagajob.com
vanadium 9y ago
"One in four people in the US have searched for or found a job using Facebook" [citation needed]
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  Citation needed? That doesn’t make any sense in this context. It’s a primary source. They know what people search for in their own site. That’s like me saying I found my job using a newspaper and you saying citation needed. I just told you what I know to be true. Do you go around snapping ‘citation needed’ at anyone who tells you anything about their business? Madness.
  - vanadium 9y ago
    Respectfully no, but it would be relevant to understand the methodology of how they were able to discern a 1-in-4 statistic which seems, on its face at least, questionable at best. Maybe they're right and the methodology might be sound, but it doesn't change my perspective without that backing information to contextualize it. A "primary source" also isn't in any way immune to rational inquiry. I don't mean for this parallel in any way to imply a relationship, but just look at our administration or any one of innumerable other examples to this end. Taking something at face value, to me at least, requires more than a decontextualized statement of fact when my immediate impulse is to question it (in this particular case). For instance, define "job". Are we talking about a recommendation leading to a project for a contractor, or are we talking a full-time position? I mean, that's just the start. In what ways are they determining what constitutes "finding a job"? Talking to friends and friends of friends? Or directly messaging a corporation's page on Facebook? There's a lot of squish here and I wish they were more forthcoming about what that statistic actually means.
    - chrisseaton 9y ago
      It sounds like you just want more information on how they determined this. That's not what 'citation' means. A citation is a reference to a document where information came from in the first place. What document are you expecting to be cited here? A citation for some internal Facebook email where a manager asked for a stat and the data guys responded with a number? How's that going to help you if it's just the same number as in here? If I tell you I saw a cat in my garden, and you demand 'citation needed', what do you want me to cough up? There's no document to cite. That's just me telling you what I saw.
Kluny 9y ago
I have to admit I've found at least 3 jobs through facebook. I still hate this though. I don't want employers to see my facebook.
parliament32 9y ago
Older blue-collar workers are pretty much the only demographic left on Facebook, so I suppose this makes sense. Personally, I don't think I've logged in this year yet -- all my social circles have moved on to other networks.
kennethlamar 9y ago
Next up: hopeful workers advertising the desired political affiliations of the corporations they wish to work for. Then: Just by working for a corporation, your vote is "bought", so now on to phase two of the plan where corporations pick which corporate political entities their serfs vote for. Your incorporated utopia awaits.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
throwyc135 9y ago
founder - you know we applied as interviewstreet. pg changed the name. me - what ? f - pg said, call it hackerrank. we are all hackers. every hacker will do a bunch of algorithm puzzles. then they get a rank. me - so you have reduced a person to a number f - yes, now hiring is so easy! you don’t have to trust resumes. people lie in resume. but the rank is truth. so with this rank you can just destroy linkedin. because every hacker will simply have a rank. we will publish this rank. then if you want to hire some hackers of rank 3, you come to us. we will have a rank 3 directory with all the rank 3 hackers. we will tell you who is available for hire. when you hire we get a cut. me - ok but f - and if the hacker wants to improve his rank he will spend more time on hackerrank working on these algorithm puzzles to improve his rank. me - but why f - because everyone wants to improve his rank. all of us want to be rank 1. but there can only be so many rank 1. so we can make the puzzles more difficult over time. control the supply. obviously we will charge more for hiring rank 1 people compared to say rank 7. me - oh f - its all very simple. hacker. rank. hacker has rank. we have all the hackers. we give all the ranks. for hiring the hacker you come to us. for improving rank you come to us. so every tech company in the valley will have no choice. they have to come to us. every developer will also come to us. it is quite amazing. me - amazing. amazing.
codegladiator 9y ago
So if you don't have a nice facebook profile, you dont get a job ?
CottageCarry 9y ago
Genius move by Facebook here in my opinion. They should be doing everything they can to cater to the less tech savvy.
angrymouse 9y ago
Having redesigned a hospital's recruitment process to use Facebook advertising for the more "blue collar" type jobs (porters, support workers, estates type jobs as well as nurses) I can really see this working. We got ridiculous traction in the local area. We were reaching people who had never really thought of a career at their local hospital. But a hospital isn't just doctors. Often with Facebook we didn't actually directly hit the candidate either. People's mum, uncle, brother or friend would find the advert and pass it on. Facebook is already successful in recruitment. Only makes sense they really target this market and provide the business tools to do it
- ecshafer 9y ago
  I come from a blue collar background, and have a large blue collar network on Facebook. I regularly see people posting about jobs, sharing that they are looking for jobs, etc. It will often be in just a generic post along the lines of "x construction is looking for laborers, $20 an hour call #" then reshared a hundred times. I think a formalized and well designed way of doing this could work and a have a large benefit.
- pnathan 9y ago
  I live in a very not-white-collar neighborhood these days and am on in variety of neighborhood e-groups. Facebook is used, heavily, by the lower class. Very. heavily.
c1utch1 9y ago
The problem I have with this is that job applications are one of the only instances where I use real data for my personal information (besides when dealing with heavily regulated industries like banks). So now Facebook is collecting treasure troves of data on people via this job application tool.
znpy 9y ago
Job application via Facebook? No way I'm going down that route. By the way... It seems to me that "youngsters" are slowly realizing that heavy social media (a-la Facebook, that wants to know everything about you and wants to follow every aspect of your life, intruding wherever possible) is higly toxic, and it's trying to expand to other "market areas".
redthrowaway 9y ago
This could turn out really well for them. I've got several friends, from real estate agents to concert promoters to plumbers who already use Facebook in this manner.
propman 9y ago
I'm fairly anti-Facebook but this is actually a great idea. A big reason for unemployment is the inefficiencies it takes to take all the steps from motivating yourself in finding a job to getting hired. A lot of unemployed sometimes need a kick in the butt because it's hard to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities (been there), so this partly eliminates the first step of making the decision to get you stuff together and look for jobs by making it come directly to you. Good job Facebook!
dredmorbius 9y ago
"Nobody forces you to use Facebook." "Please provide your Facebook profile to continue with your employment application." #WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?
asab 9y ago
I'm curious how this Facebook VP knows what he knows: “One in four people in the US have searched for or found a job using Facebook” writes Facebook’s VP of Local Alex Himel.
gumby 9y ago
LinkedIn is trying to be the blue-collar LinkedIn (plumbers, florists, machinists etc) but I don't know how effective they have been. FB seems like they have the reach

237 points by james33 9y ago

paulie_a 9y ago

LinkedIn uselessness with Facebook creepiness™

ryan-c 9y ago
Are you implying that LinkedIn isn't creepy?
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  It's not creepy, it's pushy.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    ¿Por que no los dos?
mfoy_ 9y ago
Oof, imagine browsing through prospective plumbers' Facebook profiles... Just adds a whole layer... of... weirdness.
wickawic 9y ago
I actually like LinkedIn because hey know they are the internet’s Rolodex and (more importantly) people on the site mostly use it that way. If I were pressured by society/peers to be “active” on LinkedIn in the same way we are pressured in an abstract sense to be on Facebook, it would lose all utility for me.
- nathan_long 9y ago
  What bugs me is getting asked by people I know in a personal context to recommend them professionally. I can vouch that they are reasonably nice, but I don't know anything about their work. If I worked directly with someone and know they're good, I'm happy to endorse that.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  To be fair they became the internet's rolodex by outright stealing your address book and sending fake invites to people on your behalf.
  - herogreen 9y ago
    And now they have put a join-wall that is hard to circumvent (erasing cookies does not seem to suffice). It is one of the reasons why I hope to never join Linkedin.
    - paulie_a 9y ago
      After deleting my account, I've had to look up a couple people recently and encountered that. My only thought is: "thanks LinkedIn for making yourself increasingly irrelevant"
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
I found my current job on LinkedIn.

whatshisface 9y ago

There's some who argue that having all of your life in one place, recorded, won't be a problem because society will be forced to shift in a more liberal direction and stop judging people. The alternative outcome is that this forces a hard crystallization around various very specific cultures, where for every community there's a list of "weird stuff that everyone does," and "stuff that gets you ostracized." So for example going to furry conventions might end up assigned to Googlers, and going to church assigned to machinists. That seems a lot more likely, given human nature.

EpicEng 9y ago
>society will be forced to shift in a more liberal direction and stop judging people Really? This hasn't been my experience at all. FB can be just as toxic as e.g. a youtube comment section, and what I see more often than not is people self selecting based on who agrees with them nearly 100% of the time.
- space_fountain 9y ago
  Ops point seems to be exactly that that is the most likely outcome rather than the nicer sounding alternative.
  - EpicEng 9y ago
    Sure, I didn't mean to imply that OP was buying into it, I'm just a bit shocked that _anyone_ believes that.
- whatshisface 9y ago
  Right, but the theory (which I'm arguing against, see above), is that if economic rewards are grafted on to the social side then people will become more open so that they can become more economically successful. Youtube comments and today's FB aren't economic - there are few incentives against bubbling yourself beyond personal gratification.
  - 9y ago

thisisit 9y ago

> Meanwhile, job seekers can discover openings, auto-fill applications with their Facebook profile information And soon we will need discussion on how a job seeker is being shunned at a workplace for his/her personal views which came bundled with these auto-fill forms. I can be wrong but whenever I read stuff like these it seems to me companies, specially social networking, are running out of ideas and just scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.

adjkant 9y ago
Agreed. Facebook has a ton of engineers sitting around (not designers, engineers). Only so many can data mine and work on advertising, so some portion of them will look around and decide "what if we just add in random feature x from other thing y!" and eventually some get approval. It's really nonsensical from a user perspective. I can't imagine what user would ask for this. And because of the scale of Facebook, there's no penalty for this not working out. So they will just keep pushing random features and will see what sticks. See stories, their AI chatbot assistant in messenger, and I suspect this will suffer the same fate.
aje403 9y ago
Hopefully this doesn't stick 2 years from now. "Must apply via our Facebook listing - please have the show all photos checkbox selected" - Granted, that probably won't affect white collar workers as heavily
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  Do do believe Facebook is on it's way out, but I created a fake real-name profile to guard against a future where it's more ubiquitous and I'm expected to give others access to it.
Kalium 9y ago
I've seen a number of my more blue-collar friends use Facebook as a job site on and off for years. I suspect that to a lot them, this will mostly be a formalization of things they already do.

deftnerd 9y ago

No... Just no! Facebook crawls into every portion of our lives. I killed my account because of its insidious feature creep. You don't put up photos of yourself in a swimsuit at work and would sue any workplace that demanded that you show them those pictures. You shouldn't bring your political beliefs into work, and would be uncomfortable if your boss cornered you and demanded to know how you felt about the president or some tax policy. But, this is content that is often on your Facebook page. By moving employeer/applicant relationships onto Facebook, it's associating applicants personal lives into the sphere of employer consideration. It's wrong and I hope that nobody takes this seriously.

foolfoolz 9y ago
linked in is basically a separate facebook account with less photos and personal details. just make a new fb account for jobs with less photos and personal details the social network can only share as much as you give it, its up to you to keep that content personal and offline. i’m not a huge fan of this concept that people give tons of info to these personal dat selling websites and shouldn’t be responsible for it, it’s the companies that shoulder all responsibility. everyone should be well versed in online sharing
- snerbles 9y ago
  > the social network can only share as much as you give it You and your "friends".
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> It's wrong and I hope that nobody takes this seriously It's wrong and I hope people take that seriously.
ryandrake 9y ago
I’m pretty sure I remember an article on HN a while back talking about employers demanding applicants’ social media passwords as conditions of employment, so they can go through and look for this stuff. So, in reality the applicants’ personal lives are already in the sphere.

megaman22 9y ago

Facebook is pivoting into becoming Craigslist.

acct1771 9y ago
Craigslist+ads, with a healthy dose of meme garbage to keep the plebs opening the tab.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Um. Craigslist is ads. (There are, yes, parts of it which aren't. But ads are the prime motive.)
  - acct1771 9y ago
    Ads in this context meaning private companies paying for placement of their brand in front of specific demographics.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      As is Craigslist. Though payment is only required for limited categories.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

A few months ago I turned off Facebook notifications on my phone. Then I turned off Messenger notifications. I recently deleted the Facebook app. A month ago, the Messenger app moved to page two. Two weeks ago I deleted both from my phone (still have WhatsApp) and force myself to log out when I visit on my laptop. I'm not sure this is the level of disconnection I'll remain at. (Maybe only in election years.) I do think it's a gentle enough curve that everyone should try it. When I ask friends whom, among Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix and Amazon, they trust most, the results are heterogenous. When I ask whom they trust least, it's universally Facebook. If you don't trust someone, they may not have your best interests at heart; keeping them close is like holding on to a toxic friend.

jrimbault 9y ago
On the meta subject of notifications: I've disabled all sounds and vibrations of my personal phone and I make frequent use of the snooze functions (either app level or os level). I feel like it's also good starting point.
- aloner 9y ago
  I tried that for a while, but I ended up going on the app to see if there was anything new instead, it ain't really useful.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > I ended up going on the app to see if there was anything new Deleting the app makes you aware of how frequently one gets the subconscious urge to do that. (Same with logging out on the computer.) Once you add that friction, it becomes easier to become conscious of the behavior and then decide if, in a car between meetings, what you really want to do is scroll through Facebook.
paulie_a 9y ago
Facebook seems to have adopted the dark pattern of messenger notifications of "1" even after I have deleted all chats. Every time I open the facebook app I am alerted of a new message. I've gone so far as to file a report with facebook, but have not heard back. I assume this behavior is intentional at this point.

mr_tristan 9y ago

Great, now it's just a matter of time until recruiters start trying to contact me via FB. In which case... that will be the end of my FB usage. In less snarky terms, spam is the bane of nearly every "jobs" site I've ever seen. Since FB attracts such a wide net, i.e., not very technical and skilled folks, it will be a significant challenge to make any kind of jobs/careers feature not turn into a noise-fest as they grow it. I wish them luck.

Legogris 9y ago

I find it a bit uncomfortable with the repetitive use of "low-skill" in the article. You can actually be skillful in areas outside of STEM, finance and business.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
"Skill," in economics, is a function of training time. "Occupations that require less than 12 months of training and" have a high incidence of employees "with a high school diploma or less" were defined as "low-skill" going back to the 60s [1]. High-skill workers are expensive to make, expensive to hire and expensive to replace. The tolerable level of turnover amongst high-skill staff, to the average company, is low. (At least in comparison with low-skill staff, who can be more-easily replaced.) [1] http://web.mit.edu/osterman/www/LowWage-LowSkill.pdf http://web.mit.edu/osterman/www/LowWage-LowSkill.pdf
- walshemj 9y ago
  And a full proper apprenticeship can take longer than a degree to earn in most cases.

k00lGr4p 9y ago

FB is getting pretty desperate these days.

sharno 9y ago

I actually like this. Linkedin is very annoying sometimes, but it gives nice exposure to the job market if you're looking for opportunities. Facebook did a great job with buying/selling stuff that matches and complements craigslist for example. This gave a lot of power to communities which don't use craigslist much outside the US. I think they can do a nice job to have people get more exposure in the job market when they need to and become a better job market than linkedin. I think we should be more pragmatic in the tools we use and just encourage the usage of better tools in the right way. Facebook is horrible as a content or social network because of our behaviour in using it as so. But they do great tools and we should fix our usage of these tools.

vinceguidry 9y ago

I read a story recently about a guy who, through sheer happenstance, managed to fix his entire life. He had gotten laid off of his job and was getting desperate. He usually picked up the New York Post and applied to the jobs he saw there. This time they were out of the Post, so he grabbed the Times. He saw an ad for a job fair. He went to the fair. The fair was practically empty, but the employers were desperate, the first recruiter he meets basically just takes his info down, tells him where to report to and when he starts. The job fair folks didn't realize that blue collar workers didn't read the Times, so that's the reason why the fair was empty. Blue collar job matching still appears to be a blue ocean and Facebook seems to be uniquely positioned to serve that market. If they can get this right, this could end blue-collar unemployment overnight.

bduerst 9y ago
Except in your example, blue collar doesn't appear to use the internet to find jobs or job fairs, even if they have a Facebook account. This reads like a pitch for smart devices for baby boomers. Sure it's a blue ocean, but most retirees don't use smart devices, even though they may have a cell phone.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  That seems like a hurdle that Facebook of all companies could leap if they set their minds to it. Also, there is anecdotal evidence in this very HN post of the contrary. And I think you underestimate the utility of technological aids for old people. They are using them, more now than ever.
- briandear 9y ago
  > most retirees don't use smart devices, even though they may have a cell phone. Really would love a citation for that. My dad is 74, my step mom is retired in her late 60s, all of their church group of about 35 people — every single one has a tablet or smart phone. That’s anecdotal obviously, but this sample is a mix of retired blue and white collar people at a variety of incomes (and ethnic backgrounds.) Retired boomers are a huge smart device market from my experience.

at-fates-hands 9y ago

This is so wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. I was told for years and years to keep my business life separate from my personal life. It's actually quite scary people are going to fall for it and use this and in the process, hand over a myriad of information that should be protected, solely for the purposes of screening people based on their personal life and their choices therein. Scary, very, very scary.

geebee 9y ago
I share your concern. It may not happen, though. Social networks tend toward natural monopolies. Facebook may have better features and uptime than the next best alternative (or not), but either way, social networks gain most of their utility from all the people on then. So it's notable that linkedin survived this consolidation. I think this is because people want to keep their business and professional lives distinct. It's actually more than that. There's a comment lower about how Facebook is creepy, and linkedin is pushy. There's a very good reason those are the notable faults identified. Think of this scenario: a programmer goes to a business meeting with some people form ops and marketing after a conference, and they have lunch or coffee afterwards. Some linkedin invites follow. It might seem a little pushy to some, not to others, but most people (from my observation) wouldn't consider it inappropriate. It's "ok" to be a bit more direct and immediate with business contacts. The same thing with Facebook might seem creepy. I suspect linkedin or something like it will hang on precisely because it isn't a "social" network.

cs702 9y ago

In the short run, this may be a great revenue-growth opportunity for Facebook. That said, prospective employees will want to look their best for prospective employers, and vice versa, so I have a nagging feeling that the job-posting initiative will further accelerate Facebook's ongoing transition from a network of genuine profiles and social connections to a network of puffed-up, cleaned-up social resumes and necessarily superficial connections. I say "ongoing" because many Facebook profiles have already become puffed-up, cleaned-up social resumes, and many Facebook connections have become superficial links between people who may not necessarily like or even want to spend time with each other.

brickmort 9y ago

There is absolutely nothing blue-collar about Facebook.

magic_beans 9y ago
Their users sure are.

digi_owl 9y ago

What was that line about feature creep and email again?

AndrewDucker 9y ago

I recently got some plastering/tiling done. I asked on Facebook, people recommended a tiler who had a Facebook page, I looked at the reviews there, and the photos they had posted, and then I sent them a message over Facebook Chat, we agreed a price/time, and they came and carried it out. This was all incredibly easy, and much less stressful than most times I've needed someone to do this kind of work.

blablabla123 9y ago

This is soo wrong. This will consolidate a 2 class work world. One that deserves to be on LinkedIn and one that is only present on Facebook. Even worse, those in the "lower" class even have to deal with their job life creeping into their private lives. Really stupid, everybody should have both a LinkedIn and a Facebook account.

52-6F-62 9y ago
Or neither account should be necessary to get along in this world. But you raise a good point about it having the potential for being yet another class marker.
Karunamon 9y ago
I don't understand this complaint. Facebook should avoid offering job advertisements because... some people won't use it out of their own choice, therefore classism? Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but I can't follow the logic. Both LinkedIn and Facebook accounts are free for anyone to create and use to their full extent. How is this service not a net positive if it gets people legitimate jobs? Is that not competition? Isn't more options a good thing?
- blablabla123 9y ago
  I mean looking at so called Temp Work companies: in some sense they arbitrate jobs. Most of those happen to be quite low end. Speaking of Germany, when these are "hands-on positions" in big companies they compete with non-temp people. The difference is that they have worse pay, less insurance coverage and generally less say. Others already made statistics and articles about this topics. It seems the workers loose.

debacle 9y ago

And suddenly LinkedIn is dead.

Bahamut 9y ago

I sure hope when applying for a job via FB, companies do not have access to your sensitive FB information. FB needs to make clear what information they will never share with job posters.

Slansitartop 9y ago
> I sure hope when applying for a job via FB, companies do not have access to your sensitive FB information. Oh, they won't...unless they pay for the premium package.

mydpy 9y ago

This is going to kill snagajob.com

vanadium 9y ago

"One in four people in the US have searched for or found a job using Facebook" [citation needed]

chrisseaton 9y ago
Citation needed? That doesn’t make any sense in this context. It’s a primary source. They know what people search for in their own site. That’s like me saying I found my job using a newspaper and you saying citation needed. I just told you what I know to be true. Do you go around snapping ‘citation needed’ at anyone who tells you anything about their business? Madness.
- vanadium 9y ago
  Respectfully no, but it would be relevant to understand the methodology of how they were able to discern a 1-in-4 statistic which seems, on its face at least, questionable at best. Maybe they're right and the methodology might be sound, but it doesn't change my perspective without that backing information to contextualize it. A "primary source" also isn't in any way immune to rational inquiry. I don't mean for this parallel in any way to imply a relationship, but just look at our administration or any one of innumerable other examples to this end. Taking something at face value, to me at least, requires more than a decontextualized statement of fact when my immediate impulse is to question it (in this particular case). For instance, define "job". Are we talking about a recommendation leading to a project for a contractor, or are we talking a full-time position? I mean, that's just the start. In what ways are they determining what constitutes "finding a job"? Talking to friends and friends of friends? Or directly messaging a corporation's page on Facebook? There's a lot of squish here and I wish they were more forthcoming about what that statistic actually means.
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    It sounds like you just want more information on how they determined this. That's not what 'citation' means. A citation is a reference to a document where information came from in the first place. What document are you expecting to be cited here? A citation for some internal Facebook email where a manager asked for a stat and the data guys responded with a number? How's that going to help you if it's just the same number as in here? If I tell you I saw a cat in my garden, and you demand 'citation needed', what do you want me to cough up? There's no document to cite. That's just me telling you what I saw.

Kluny 9y ago

I have to admit I've found at least 3 jobs through facebook. I still hate this though. I don't want employers to see my facebook.

parliament32 9y ago

Older blue-collar workers are pretty much the only demographic left on Facebook, so I suppose this makes sense. Personally, I don't think I've logged in this year yet -- all my social circles have moved on to other networks.

kennethlamar 9y ago

Next up: hopeful workers advertising the desired political affiliations of the corporations they wish to work for. Then: Just by working for a corporation, your vote is "bought", so now on to phase two of the plan where corporations pick which corporate political entities their serfs vote for. Your incorporated utopia awaits.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

throwyc135 9y ago

founder - you know we applied as interviewstreet. pg changed the name. me - what ? f - pg said, call it hackerrank. we are all hackers. every hacker will do a bunch of algorithm puzzles. then they get a rank. me - so you have reduced a person to a number f - yes, now hiring is so easy! you don’t have to trust resumes. people lie in resume. but the rank is truth. so with this rank you can just destroy linkedin. because every hacker will simply have a rank. we will publish this rank. then if you want to hire some hackers of rank 3, you come to us. we will have a rank 3 directory with all the rank 3 hackers. we will tell you who is available for hire. when you hire we get a cut. me - ok but f - and if the hacker wants to improve his rank he will spend more time on hackerrank working on these algorithm puzzles to improve his rank. me - but why f - because everyone wants to improve his rank. all of us want to be rank 1. but there can only be so many rank 1. so we can make the puzzles more difficult over time. control the supply. obviously we will charge more for hiring rank 1 people compared to say rank 7. me - oh f - its all very simple. hacker. rank. hacker has rank. we have all the hackers. we give all the ranks. for hiring the hacker you come to us. for improving rank you come to us. so every tech company in the valley will have no choice. they have to come to us. every developer will also come to us. it is quite amazing. me - amazing. amazing.

codegladiator 9y ago

So if you don't have a nice facebook profile, you dont get a job ?

CottageCarry 9y ago

Genius move by Facebook here in my opinion. They should be doing everything they can to cater to the less tech savvy.

angrymouse 9y ago

Having redesigned a hospital's recruitment process to use Facebook advertising for the more "blue collar" type jobs (porters, support workers, estates type jobs as well as nurses) I can really see this working. We got ridiculous traction in the local area. We were reaching people who had never really thought of a career at their local hospital. But a hospital isn't just doctors. Often with Facebook we didn't actually directly hit the candidate either. People's mum, uncle, brother or friend would find the advert and pass it on. Facebook is already successful in recruitment. Only makes sense they really target this market and provide the business tools to do it

ecshafer 9y ago
I come from a blue collar background, and have a large blue collar network on Facebook. I regularly see people posting about jobs, sharing that they are looking for jobs, etc. It will often be in just a generic post along the lines of "x construction is looking for laborers, $20 an hour call #" then reshared a hundred times. I think a formalized and well designed way of doing this could work and a have a large benefit.
pnathan 9y ago
I live in a very not-white-collar neighborhood these days and am on in variety of neighborhood e-groups. Facebook is used, heavily, by the lower class. Very. heavily.

c1utch1 9y ago

The problem I have with this is that job applications are one of the only instances where I use real data for my personal information (besides when dealing with heavily regulated industries like banks). So now Facebook is collecting treasure troves of data on people via this job application tool.

znpy 9y ago

Job application via Facebook? No way I'm going down that route. By the way... It seems to me that "youngsters" are slowly realizing that heavy social media (a-la Facebook, that wants to know everything about you and wants to follow every aspect of your life, intruding wherever possible) is higly toxic, and it's trying to expand to other "market areas".

redthrowaway 9y ago

This could turn out really well for them. I've got several friends, from real estate agents to concert promoters to plumbers who already use Facebook in this manner.

propman 9y ago

I'm fairly anti-Facebook but this is actually a great idea. A big reason for unemployment is the inefficiencies it takes to take all the steps from motivating yourself in finding a job to getting hired. A lot of unemployed sometimes need a kick in the butt because it's hard to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities (been there), so this partly eliminates the first step of making the decision to get you stuff together and look for jobs by making it come directly to you. Good job Facebook!

dredmorbius 9y ago

"Nobody forces you to use Facebook." "Please provide your Facebook profile to continue with your employment application." #WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?

asab 9y ago

I'm curious how this Facebook VP knows what he knows: “One in four people in the US have searched for or found a job using Facebook” writes Facebook’s VP of Local Alex Himel.

gumby 9y ago

LinkedIn is trying to be the blue-collar LinkedIn (plumbers, florists, machinists etc) but I don't know how effective they have been. FB seems like they have the reach