Will Facebook's Job Board compete with or threaten LinkedIn?

Branchout and many job focused Facebook pages show it has potential, but I think it highly unlikely Facebook will do well in that vertical, mainly because: 1. DNA - If you examine peoples LinkedIn and Facebook networks, the overlap is small. People inherently don't want to mix work and personal. 2. Privacy - LinkedIn focuses on "passive recruitment", which is targeting people who already have jobs, as that's where the best candidates (and hence the referral $) are. To do this well, privacy has to be highly respected, which Facebook is notoriously bad at. Today you are being headhunted, tomorrow your boss gets that as an update in his facebook feed, etc. 3. Data - Facebook knows a lot about people, but most of it is irrelevant for recruitment. Changing that is pretty tough, the open graph and like button analytics are the two things that could make it happen, but they would be starting from a long way behind and LinkedIn is growing at a rapid clip. 4. Search - google still owns search and they don't like Facebook. People are either headhunted (passive) or they search for jobs (active), but the latter generates all the ad $ (check out the strangely never mentioned gorilla in the room: http://Indeed.com). Unless Facebook gets a bigger chunk of search traffic, they are going head to head with LinkedIn on passive recruitment. Given the user base, business focus and past track record, good luck with that.

Yes, it will. EDIT: After reading Anon User's answer I have included a statement about sharing private data in relation to business purposes. Let's see what makes LinkedIN: - job listings - profiles - a big user base - updates/a news feed LinkedIN is a specialized social network, rather than a job board - no one would argue with that fact. Facebook is a universal social network platform, offering first and third party services. Look at the services Facebook duplicated/acquired, like photo sharing, and you know where I am going: If a business model that runs on social platform technology is successful enough, Facebook will try to eat that cake. Since it cannot acquire LinkedIN, it duplicates its service. Because there are already successful services in the career business running as an app on Facebook, the step seems only more logical. The publication of personal data is has already transformed our private lives. It's a fact that today more people than ever share more private data than ever with their relatives and friends online. The second transition is also in full fledge: We (meaning the people in general) have already begun to share more and more of our private data with strangers, colleagues, friends of friends and other distant people. Many people even go so far as to friend all of their colleagues and publicize their whole Timeline. Since releasing private data is becoming more and more common, it is only a question of time until this development will reach the business lives of most people. It might take longer for some business areas than others, but it has already started, is spreading fast and will continue to spread. Recent development shows that Facebook is not just competing with job board internet services. Wired correspondent makes a pretty good point in his June 2012 Article "The Facebook Juggernaut" (http://wrdm.ag/K5WrOV) that Facebook is again becoming more and more of a a closed platform like the early AOL and the like. With more and more links being rewired to Facebook apps rather than the respective websites, Facebook is making it harder and more and more unnevessary for its users to leave the platform, thus forcing/driving 'engagement'. The pressure to deliver higher each and every quarter that Facebook's shareholders apply is unstoppable. It has to grow to survive.

I wouldn't want future employers anywhere near my Facebook profile, not even the limited version.  I wouldn't want them to know that I have a Facebook account at all, which is why I've made it unsearchable. Of course, I'm in a field of work, where it's not a good idea to mix social networking with professional networking (law).  I wouldn't want firms I'm working with to know how much fun I had on my vacation, and I wouldn't want potential clients having access to that information either.  I know others in my field feel the same way.  So, for more traditional lines of work, I think that Facebook's job board won't really make a difference. As for other fields/areas, e.g. internet-tech-based businesses, maybe it will appeal to them, but LinkedIn is already the go-to for all things professional.  It will be hard to rid the notion that Facebook is for fun from people's minds.

There's a high probability that the Facebook team have learned from Indeed's success and are working towards a targeted aggregator: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121114006704/en/Monster%C3%82%C2%AE-Joins-Social-Jobs-Partnership-Making-Monster Under those circumstances, I would consider them a credible player in the value chain. If they work out a simple native posting method, they could easily take a top three slot by next year. I doubt that they will compete with LinkedIn, but they will compete with the incumbent "classifieds" companies. As an aside, all job boards are struggling to deliver a coherent proposition on mobile and this is doubly true of Facebook. They have the resources so it will be interesting to watch what they believe will be the best approach.

Somehow I doubt it. I think people are a bit more discerning about social platforms and what they use them for. I, for example am very clear about keeping my personal intercations with frieds etc confined to either Facebook or Google + and my professional network is restricted to Linked In. I would hate to have unknown people and recruiters etc. be on my social network or for that matter my "social "downtime space to become in any way intertwined with my professional, work related groups or recruitment or job activity.

This was a first attempt by Facebook, but a lame first attempt.  Facebook will really have to up their game to compete with Linkedin, based on their first efforts.  See my analysis in "https://recareered.infusionsoft.com/app/hostedEmail/13477177/ab764e4c7889849d".

Facebook and LinkedIn will be providing a complete different stream of candidates, their value propositions are different. They may compete but unless Facebook changes a lot, there's no way LinkedIn will be threaten   Let's look at how companies are currently using the LinkedIn to source candidates, and why Facebook won't be able won't be threatening.   HR staff and Recruiters are using LinkedIn because they can access structured data of a talent pool, including a talent pool that might not necessarily be looking. People see LinkedIn as a professional tool and therefore see an opportunity in populating all their professional information, whereas Facebook users do not.   Facebook on the other hand is a social tool, jobs being put up on Facebook will be posted as advertising. The value Facebook offers is quantity but not quality.   The recruitment world is moving towards structured data and forgetting CVs when sourcing through piles of candidates. Which is why LinkedIn has the upper hand in this fight, and the competition won't be of significance for LinkedIn.

I think that sites like LinkedIn will continue to have an advantage over Facebook simply because they segregate career-oriented content from all the background noise that comes with Facebook. Facebook seems to be trying to be everybody's solution to every need, but not everybody wants co-workers or potential employers to see their personal posts alongside their career-oriented posts or vice versa.