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Is Facebook Really Better Than LinkedIn for Job Seekers?

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Most people who utilize social media to look for a new job immediately turn to LinkedIn, which has developed a reputation for being the largest professional social network. It’s the go-to destination to connect with recruiters, stay in touch with people you meet at networking events, and discover new opportunities. However, as Facebook is actually the largest social network, period, could it be that Facebook is the better place to look for a new job?

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Alan Katzman at youtern.com seems to think so. According to his analysis, Facebook offers the ability for job seekers to interact with companies on Facebook and share their content.

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By doing this, “you will begin to identify real people behind a company’s curtain,” he writes. “Most important, they will begin to recognize you as a passionate follower, perhaps a brand ambassador. This rarely happens on LinkedIn – and represents a huge advantage for job seekers using Facebook to engage with potential employers.”

However, it’s important to realize exactly how the social media managers that operate these pages actually see people who interact with brands on Facebook. If you, as a job seeker, are engaging with a particularly big brand, it’s likely that your comment will go unnoticed amongst the hundreds of others posted in response to a post on the brand’s page. In fact, even if you do comment on every single thing a brand does, you will probably still seem anonymous to a social media manager whose job is primarily to create content and maintain the brand’s reputation. As a result, your positive comments are likely to be swept under the rug and be especially unnoticed by the people who matter — your potential boss (who is not likely to be the person managing the Facebook page) or a recruiter.

While it’s true that an increasing number of recruiters are turning to Facebook to find qualified candidates, they’re mostly doing so in the final stages of the interview process as part of a social media background check. if you’re really serious about a job, your best bet is to continue using LinkedIn as your go-to destination to connect with the brands you want to work with. Facebook has some great opportunities to network — especially if you join groups specific to your industry — but at the end of the day, the people who you want to find and want to find you will have a much easier time doing so on LinkedIn. 

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Do you prefer using LinkedIn or Facebook to find a job? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.


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Gerald

In this article you reference an infographic at undergroundrecruiter.com that does not exist anymore.

That infographic can be seen here: http://learnershipsa.com/advice/how-recruiters-use-social-media-to-screen-candidates/

Maybe u can update the link to that page?
Gerald

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