At its very essence, Facebook’s mission is to connect people. While it may have started as a social tool, it has now become a powerful part of the recruitment process for many businesses.
With 1.62 billion daily users worldwide, Facebook offers organisations the chance to recruit potential candidates from a more vast and diverse talent pool than traditionally available to them. According to Sprout Social, users spend an average of 35 minutes on Facebook every single day – why wouldn’t you want to get in front of this audience?
Facebook Jobs
In recognition of its recruitment pulling power, Facebook introduced a Jobs feature in 2018, which connects organisations and users who are actively looking for jobseekers and jobs respectively. Through this feature, users can search for roles based on job title, geographical location and industry and allow notifications when relevant jobs become available.
Facebook makes it easy for candidates to submit their resume and relevant contact details. In fact, with autofill generally available it’s often not necessary to click more than 2 buttons to apply for a role on Facebook and beginning the recruitment process online.
In order to attract a wider base of both active and passive candidates, employers can also post paid advertisements on Facebook that are targeted at certain demographics or interests. However, the ability to target comes with its own considerations – if intending to advertise a vacant position on Facebook by purchasing an advertisement, organisations must comply with Australian laws (i.e. the Sex Discrimination Act) when nominating the advertisement’s target audience.
In the United States, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently found seven employers had violated federal laws by utilising the platform’s ad targeting capabilities to exclude women and older workers from seeing their job advertisements.
Going Beyond the Resume
Another unique aspect of recruiting in the age of Facebook is that social media allows potential employers to gain a better insight into applicants. An individual’s photos, status updates and comments on their social media can reveal a lot about a person. Should their profile be visible, employers will likely very quickly be able to determine whether an applicant would, or would not, be a good fit with their organisation.
This doesn’t just apply to Facebook – those with regularly active and public Instagram, YouTube or even LinkedIn accounts open themselves up to a range of inspection. Hiring managers or future colleagues can quickly and easily look up potential candidates in a way that the traditional recruitment process could never have allowed.
Savvy applicants should understand that it is common for hiring managers to inspect their social media, especially when applying for jobs on Facebook, so they must have appropriate privacy settings, or not post anything that may jeopardise their chances at a new role.
While this is socially acceptable practice these days, it can be a murky area of the law. If you are unsure of your rights as a hiring manager or business owner in the recruitment process, we recommend seeking legal advice before making any decisions.
