Facebook has teamed up with the US Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association (DE), and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA). The five groups announced a joint commitment to create the Social Jobs Partnership, which aims to facilitate employment for America’s jobless by leveraging the social network.
More than 70 percent of college career centers have a Facebook Page according to an independent survey by NACE, and 92 percent of respondents have recruited or plan to recruit via social networks according to a Jobvite poll conducted in 2010. In other words, the partners in this initiative realize people and companies are already using social networks to find jobs and recruit candidates, respectively. They want to encourage the practice in order to reduce the national unemployment rate.
In order to get people back to work, the partnership will pursue a number of initiatives designed to more effectively leverage the social network in the job market:
- Launch a central Facebook Page at facebook.com/socialjobs that hosts resources and content designed to help job seekers and employers. Facebook will launch public service announcements on Facebook to promote the Page in the 10 states with the highest unemployment rate, as well as Puerto Rico, which has an unemployment rate of 16 percent.
- Conduct an in-depth survey research about the ways in which job seekers, college career centers, and workforce recruiters are using the social web.
- Explore and develop systems where new job postings can be delivered virally through Facebook at no charge.
- Promote existing government programs and resources for job hunters.
- Distribute educational materials about leveraging the power of the social web to recruiters, government agencies, and job seekers.
“Facebook is about connecting people so that they can share what’s important to them, and that is the driving force behind the Social Jobs Partnership,” Marne Levine, Facebook vice president of Global Public Policy, said in a statement. “We’ve brought employers, recruiters, college career services and government agencies together to help the millions of Americans who use Facebook find jobs.”
“Linking American job seekers with the resources they need to get back to work is a top priority of the Obama Administration and my department,” US Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said in a statement. “By leveraging the power of the social web, this initiative will provide immediate, meaningful and ready-to-use information for job seekers and employers, and a modern platform to better connect them.”
See also:
- More than 100 new Facebook cases under NLRB review
- Facebook apps have created 200,000 US jobs (study)
- Judge: fired for complaining on Facebook? You’re rehired!
- Job recruiters increasingly using Facebook to find candidates
- When Mark Zuckerberg wants to hire you, he takes you to the woods
- Employer demands Facebook login credentials during interview
