It may not be immediately apparent why you need Facebook for your job search. At first, Facebook was used almost exclusively for personal reasons among college students. Soon, complications arose: What if your mom wants to connect with you on Facebook and sees your party pictures? If your ex-girlfriend wants to connect, what will your wife say? Will your boss be upset if you don’t accept his friend request?
Then companies started to exploit the rich profile information of Facebook users to market their products and services. And companies looking for talent used Facebook to show off how cool they were to work for. In short order, Facebook has become the largest and most dynamic social network in the world.
Other networks try to copy its technology, business strategy, and company culture. And because of its size and importance in society today, Facebook can no longer be ignored in your job search.
Following are the reasons Facebook is so essential when you’re looking for a job in today’s social media–focused world, from the most important reason to the least important one:
Most jobs come from referrals. If most jobs come from referrals, and most referrals come from friends and family, guess which social network has the highest concentration of friends and family? Perhaps this is why some studies show that Facebook has been responsible for more jobs than even LinkedIn. Building trust within your personal network is the key to making Facebook your most valued career asset.
Facebook is the size of a large country. No exaggeration here. Currently, Facebook has more users than the United States has citizens. The number of interconnections, relationships, and interactions between people in the network are infinitely complex, which presents a wonderful opportunity to meet new connections who may be helpful. It also means that your personal brand can be exposed to more people and accelerate your career.
You can use Facebook to find out more about a company. Just as companies can get the inside scoop on you and your personality by looking at your Facebook profile, so too can you discover the facts about and vibe of a company by “liking” its Facebook Page — a public Facebook account designed for organizations to interact with customers who “like” them.
You can also conduct your research about the company from its Page because all the links to the company’s blogs and websites are right there, as well as information about benefits, culture, and other important HR information.
Not only can you find out a lot about the personality of organizations based on what they post and how they interact with consumers online, but you can also (in some cases) find out about job opportunities. Many companies today are using Facebook to attract new talent and interact with possible job candidates.
So if you haven’t “liked” your target company’s Page yet, your competition may have already beaten you to it. Find out whether your target company has a Page by simply entering its name into the search bar at the top of your Facebook account. If a page pops up, navigate to it and click on the Like button.