Facebook Job Finding Assistant

More and more, the internet and social networking sites are becoming a integrated part of daily life, but a lot of things are still the same; people still need jobs. Since a critical part of job finding comes from networking, if you have friends that work there, or maybe your parents know a manager, it seems intuitive to combine social networking sites and job finding in simple and easy to understand manner.

With more then 500 million registered users world wide and about 50% of the United States, Facebook seems to be the natural choice to Integrate Job finding with social networking. Along with its already build-in API for application, Facebook is an ideal candidate.

The objective of this application is to create a meaningful, productive, and accessible platform for diverse people, from all walks of life, who may be using the social network and also looking for work.

A Facebook job finder application could use the FB API’s in a number of beneficial ways. You could build your resume. Using interests, location etc, the app could create the beginnings of a resume and then allow the user to continue updating it. It might also allow upload of the user’s existing resume for merging. The app could offer nice formatting, insertion of pictures (appropriate of course!)

Recommend Friends. Applications for Good has been working with Job Rooster to develop an integration using some of their tools and some of our networking ideas. They have built a robust database of jobs and patented an algorithm that allows users to be recommended for jobs where their friends are employed. Using this as a starting point we believe there is a business opportunity with a freemium model, that allows members to purchase premium services from the application like employer references or coaching and job advice.

Intelligent resume sharing – Obviously, FB allows sharing, but it would be possible to do some intelligent searching of friends’ profiles to suggest promising avenues. For example, if a friend is checking into work each day, it indicates she has a job. Those with jobs can often find jobs for their friends. The networks friends are in would also provide hints for promising shares.

Resume Building – With our already established  resume builder, Users that have never written a resume will be guided though simple, easy to understood, steps.

Job Searching – Giving users the ability to find and look at multiple opportunities before they decide what they want and don’t want to apply to. The search function would give result relevant to not only the users key word but also relevant to the users geographic location and disclosed information and likes. The search function would then give a star rating or graphic representation to the jobs most likely to be a match.

Experience reviews – User created reviews will help people avoid shady, hazardous employers and multi-level marketing scams. Ratings could also create a degree of persistence within the app.

User interface – It is crucial that the applications UI is both simple and easy to use as well as eye-catching and entertaining enough to keep the user engaged and focus, without becoming overwhelming, confusing and aggravating.

Mass DB insertion – This one would require some research but it seems that eventually, there will be a standard API for entering one’s personal data into a jobs search database. This would be a location to save your personal data that you commonly enter into application forms. It would offer the ability to export your information to multiple formats like .csv or vcard.

Network value assessment – If a teen is searching for a job at a clothes store, the fact that her network is heavily into clothes ought to be a point in her favor for an employer. Other emerging technology that could be mashed in, is measurement of influence over buying decisions similar to the way co-tweet rates their users for influence based on numbers of posts and quality of responses. These kinds of indicators could be developed and sold to employers perhaps.

Future Integration

Becoming a middle man – not only point people in the right direction, but also being able to have interviews with in the application.

What’s needed:

• A crack Facebook developer who’s keeping up on the rapid changes to the APIs
• A savvy job search expert – perhaps someone who works at Monster.com or another large employment company
• Funding