Facebook may launch its own job board

Facebook is planning to launch its own job board after teaming with existing job-posting companies. Citing anonymous sources, media reports said that BranchOut, Jobvite and Work4Labs will be at least three of the companies that will pair with the platform.

With the rise of LinkedIn - and its aggressive moves into social-networking functionality - having Facebook enter the fray is an obvious play for them.

Whether or not the job posts will display in the news feed is unclear.

Many bigger companies have career recruitment presences on Facebook already, but a centralised engine behind job postings and searches would feed the engagement metrics.

According to recent estimates, the job-posting market is worth about USD 4.3 billion and everyone would like to have a piece of it.

Last October, the social networking site initiated its move towards becoming a source for job hunters by teaming up with the US Department of Labor and three employment-related agencies in an attempt to decrease the country's 9.1 per cent unemployment rate using social media -- a project that may eventually include a Facebook job posting system.

This partnership started a new era of formal job hunting content on Facebook -- which some recruiters already prefer over LinkedIn -- for the first time.

As part of the initiative, Facebook launched a "Social Jobs" portal that makes easily accessible educational content and tools from its partners at the Department of Labor, National Association of Colleges and Employers, Direct Employers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.

It plans to promote this page in the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates and Puerto Rico. The most interesting aspect of the new partnership, however, is a plan to inch Facebook into job listings territory.

Facebook's statement announcing the partnership mentioned "systems where new job postings can be delivered virally through the Facebook site at no charge." What shape such a job posting system would take, and whether Facebook has any solid plans beyond research to pursue one, are still not clear.

A job board that lives on Facebook could put the social network in direct competition with sites like LinkedIn and Monster.com