Facebook is testing a new feature that would let businesses create job postings and receive applications from candidates. The move would put it in direct competition with LinkedIn, which makes most of its revenue from job hunters and recruiters who pay a monthly fee to post resumes and connect with people outside of their circles.
"Based on behavior we've seen on Facebook, where many small businesses post about their job openings on their Page, we're running a test for page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates," a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Page admins that have access to the experimental jobs tab can create a job posting using the Page composer. Details can include salary, job title, full-time or part-time status and more. Job postings will appear along with other Page posts in the News Feed and within the jobs tab itself, and users can submit their applications by clicking the "apply now" button.
Facebook currently has 1.79 billion active users, or about four times the number of users on LinkedIn, and its users are more engaged. But given the high level of noise already in users' feeds, businesses might have to compete heavily for attention, whereas on LinkedIn users are there specifically to find job opportunities and business connections.
There's no word on when the service might launch or how Facebook plans to monetize it.
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