Potential new Facebook product could help recruiters source candidates
17 November 2014
A new business-focused Facebook product that could be a competitor for the likes of LinkedIn has received mixed reviews from recruitment professionals.
Mon, 17 Nov 2014
A new business-focused Facebook product that could be a competitor for the likes of LinkedIn has received mixed reviews from recruitment professionals.
According to a report in the Financial Times, Facebook is working on a new website called Facebook at Work, which will allow users to chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate on documents.
Del Connolly, business manager of technical recruiter CBSbutler, told Recruiter the new product could be a “useful platform”.
“As a recruiter, it could provide a very useful platform for identifying key people that have a Facebook account, but aren’t registered on LinkedIn. But my suspicion is that candidates are likely to use one platform for business and the other for pleasure to cleanly separate the two.”
Other recruiters though were cautious about the potential success of the new platform.
Rob Saltrese, director of financial, IT, travel technology and management consulting recruiter Streamline, told Recruiter the whole nature of Facebook was possibly not what people wanted in business.
“People that are on LinkedIn are on it specifically not to be on Facebook,” he said.
He said there was “such a huge difference” between what the sites currently offer that people might not want to make the switch and that it would take Facebook some time to seriously establish its new offering.
However, because Facebook, with more than a billion users, was already so big people would take up the new product, he said.
Freelance marketing manager Emma Mills, who works with various recruitment firms, agreed that people would take up Facebook at Work.
She said it would be interesting to see a competitor for LinkedIn, and yet from what she was hearing from her clients, consultants especially did not want to mix their personal and work lives.
According to the Financial Times report, the new Facebook page would allow users to keep personal profiles separate from work.
Connolly’s colleague John Docherty, also a business manager, told Recruiter the Facebook brand would help the new product but he would be waiting to see whether users would differentiate between what was or wasn’t suitable to share on the new platform.
Facebook did not respond to Recruiter before deadline but a line in the Financial Times report says it declined to comment.
LinkedIn also declined to comment with a spokesman telling Recruiter the company does not comment on “rumour or speculation”.
A new business-focused Facebook product that could be a competitor for the likes of LinkedIn has received mixed reviews from recruitment professionals.
According to a report in the Financial Times, Facebook is working on a new website called Facebook at Work, which will allow users to chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate on documents.
Del Connolly, business manager of technical recruiter CBSbutler, told Recruiter the new product could be a “useful platform”.
“As a recruiter, it could provide a very useful platform for identifying key people that have a Facebook account, but aren’t registered on LinkedIn. But my suspicion is that candidates are likely to use one platform for business and the other for pleasure to cleanly separate the two.”
Other recruiters though were cautious about the potential success of the new platform.
Rob Saltrese, director of financial, IT, travel technology and management consulting recruiter Streamline, told Recruiter the whole nature of Facebook was possibly not what people wanted in business.
“People that are on LinkedIn are on it specifically not to be on Facebook,” he said.
He said there was “such a huge difference” between what the sites currently offer that people might not want to make the switch and that it would take Facebook some time to seriously establish its new offering.
However, because Facebook, with more than a billion users, was already so big people would take up the new product, he said.
Freelance marketing manager Emma Mills, who works with various recruitment firms, agreed that people would take up Facebook at Work.
She said it would be interesting to see a competitor for LinkedIn, and yet from what she was hearing from her clients, consultants especially did not want to mix their personal and work lives.
According to the Financial Times report, the new Facebook page would allow users to keep personal profiles separate from work.
Connolly’s colleague John Docherty, also a business manager, told Recruiter the Facebook brand would help the new product but he would be waiting to see whether users would differentiate between what was or wasn’t suitable to share on the new platform.
Facebook did not respond to Recruiter before deadline but a line in the Financial Times report says it declined to comment.
LinkedIn also declined to comment with a spokesman telling Recruiter the company does not comment on “rumour or speculation”.
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