
Facebook rolls out job posts to become the blue-collar LinkedIn - james33
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/
======
vinceguidry
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.

~~~
scrumper
I'll piggyback on your comment as my sentiment is the same. This is far from
the worst thing Facebook has done. It seems to address an unmet need. Maybe it
will end up creepy and full of unforeseen consequences (like everything else
FB) if nearly all non-office job seeking moves to FB, but for now it's helping
people.

(And also, Striper Sniper Tackle is a fabulous name for a fishing store.)

~~~
Flammy
> Maybe it will end up creepy and full of unforeseen consequences

The first thing I thought of when reading this article was "I wonder how many
Herbalife 'jobs' in disguise will end up on here..."

~~~
dalbasal
Well... One thing job sites are very hesitant to do is qa. Jobs that aren't
jobs. Listings without salary brackets. Where I live (Dublin) most jobs on job
boards don't even mention the company name. This is because they're posted by
recruiters that way, to avoid being routed around or tipping off the
competition. Often the job doesn't exist, they're just resume fishing.

LinkedIn has similar issues.

I think there's hay to be made just on requiring a minimum amount of (ideally
structured) information.

~~~
Balgair
I've been on the hunt for a while and I'll echo these sentiments. Indeed, Zip,
Monster, LinkedIn, most of them are just 'ghost' jobs. Maybe they already have
an internal candidate, maybe they have had the posting up for 2 years, maybe
they are recruiters that are just fishing idly. There's a million reasons, but
they all end up being just a time suck and resume black-hole.

Look, I know: network. That's the way to get work. _But I suck at networking_.
I don't feel that it's because I'm unsociable, it's that I don't know anyone
that that is working at a place that is hiring. All my contacts are in my same
boat of shitty jobs in a shitty area (biotech-denver)

Does anyone know how to break out into another region where you don't know
anyone? How to do remote-networking?

~~~
iamdave
I'm not even lying when I say this: 2 out of my last 3 jobs as a remote site
reliability engineer have come from Reddit. They were contract gigs, and you
have to do a bit more work vetting folks, but every now and then you'll find a
recruiter who actually knows wtf they're doing with tech people.

So yeah, 2/3 in 5 years getting quality remote jobs via reddit of all places.

/r/forhire, /r/devopsjobs, /r/sysadminjobs

~~~
Balgair
I'll try this out for bio-tech, thanks for the tip.

------
angrymouse
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
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.

------
whatshisface
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.

~~~
jiojfekjl
"There's some who argue"

Let's be clear about who.

Who is arguing that people need separate identities for work, family, and
friends? Sociologists

Who is arguing that having a single identity will make society more open? Mark
Zuckerberg.

Source: [https://boingboing.net/2018/01/22/facebook-is-
sad.html](https://boingboing.net/2018/01/22/facebook-is-sad.html)

~~~
hinkley
Sociologists and marginalized people.

As a young man I had a few friends and acquaintances who intimated that they
had been stalked. My ex wife shared a story of being stalked by a deputy
sheriff. And I can’t recall now but she may have been underage at the time to
boot.

Pretty quickly I saw a pattern. People who don’t want privacy have never cared
about someone who really needed it. Or needed it themselves.

If you think you might be queer, molested, or your neighbor might be in a hate
group but you’re not sure, if you think your kid is doing drugs, you can’t
just voice these opinions without putting someone in literal mortal peril. And
there are a host of other things that might get you stigmatized. If you are in
a bizg city that’s not a big deal. Find new people. But if you’re in a small
town...

~~~
whatshisface
It's really everyone, if they know what's good for them - no matter how
"normal" you are, there is always somewhere on earth where you would end up
marginalized if you found yourself there for some reason. Nobody's traits are
centered in _every_ culture.

------
deftnerd
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.

~~~
jurassic
Facebook is chock full of information that is illegal to ask about in job
applications like marital and family status, sexual orientation, age,
religion, etc. If this feature saw much adoption it seems like it would only
result in greater discrimination.

Beyond that, this move is surprising to me because we've been seeing a lot of
stories lately about Facebook struggling to get people to post original
content after letting the platform go wild with politicized third-party
content and advertisements. I can't imagine a better way to make Facebook less
comfortable and fun than to turn it into a resume site.

~~~
lhorie
While I generally agree with the sentiment that facebook and job sites are
like oil and water, how would discrimination with this tool work differently
than just searching for an applicant on facebook today? I wouldn't imagine
this information would be surfaced alongside the resume, so it would still
require an employer to actively take steps to discriminate.

~~~
CamelCaseName
Wouldn't Facebook be the single best equipped company to stop potential
discrimination?

E.g. You submit an application for a job posting - once that application is
opened, Facebook could block anyone who has used that IP in the past 30 days
from accessing your profile.

I imagine Facebook is where most publicly accessible personal data is, if they
could be compelled to, by PR or law, they could dramatically curb
discrimination.

~~~
abraae
That would be trivial to circumvent (pick up your phone and browse their
profile from that) and would have false negatives (large company with many
users behind NAT).

~~~
CamelCaseName
Yes sorry, that was just a trivial example to try to explain my thoughts.

How do you see Facebook stifling discrimination?

------
JumpCrisscross
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.

~~~
paulie_a
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.

~~~
freehunter
They do the same for me in the FB app on the Marketplace section. They’ll put
a red icon down there that makes me visit that section to make it go away.

Unfortunately the only things I see on there are cars where the list price is
$1 but when you open the ad it’s actually $20k. I’ve reported those to
Facebook as scams but the response was “these are legitimate ads” so there’s
no reason to go back. Other than that damn red icon.

~~~
paulie_a
I have had that happen at times with Marketplace also, which is pretty much
another garbage feature on FB. My usage has personally declined drastically as
they continue to introduce more features.

------
thisisit
> 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.

~~~
aje403
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
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.

------
at-fates-hands
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
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.

------
Legogris
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
"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
And a full proper apprenticeship can take longer than a degree to earn in most
cases.

------
cs702
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.

------
mr_tristan
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.

------
propman
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!

------
sharno
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.

------
asab
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.

------
AndrewDucker
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
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.

~~~
Karunamon
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
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.

------
gumby
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

------
Bahamut
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
> 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.

------
znpy
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".

------
dredmorbius
"Nobody forces you to use Facebook."

"Please provide your Facebook profile to continue with your employment
application."

#WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?

------
c1utch1
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.

------
parliament32
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.

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

------
redthrowaway
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.

------
Kluny
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.

------
k00lGr4p
FB is getting pretty desperate these days.

------
vanadium
"One in four people in the US have searched for or found a job using Facebook"

[citation needed]

~~~
chrisseaton
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
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
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.

~~~
vanadium
It's as simple as citing a document that lays out how they arrived at this
statistic. With all due respect, perhaps it's pleading for an ideal here, but
it still remains a questionable statistic in my opinion.

I don't understand why questioning a statistic, or especially my use of the
word "citation", is controversial.

------
digi_owl
What was that line about feature creep and email again?

------
mydpy
This is going to kill snagajob.com

------
debacle
And suddenly LinkedIn is dead.

------
paulie_a
LinkedIn uselessness with Facebook creepiness™

~~~
wickawic
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.

~~~
paulie_a
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
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
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"

------
megaman22
Facebook is pivoting into becoming Craigslist.

~~~
acct1771
Craigslist+ads, with a healthy dose of meme garbage to keep the plebs opening
the tab.

~~~
dredmorbius
Um. Craigslist _is_ ads.

(There are, yes, parts of it which aren't. But ads are the prime motive.)

~~~
acct1771
Ads in this context meaning private companies paying for placement of their
brand in front of specific demographics.

~~~
dredmorbius
As is Craigslist.

Though payment is only required for limited categories.

------
brickmort
There is absolutely nothing blue-collar about Facebook.

~~~
magic_beans
Their users sure are.

