Late last week, social media giant Facebook launched a new service that enables businesses in the US and Canada to post vacancies, while jobseekers are able to find these posts on their own page or on the company’s new jobs bookmark – a careers page featuring vacancies and details about the company.

Page administrators are able to create job posts, track applications and communicate directly with applicants. After posting a job, page administrators can also review applications and contact applicants on Facebook Messenger.

Commenting on Facebook’s move, Katharine Robinson, consultant at internet talent searching training business Sourcing Hat, said recruiters will now be able to tap into talent pools LinkedIn has not been able to reach.

Robinson told Recruiter: “From a search point of view, I already find that Facebook is better when you’re looking for someone is who is perhaps not sat at a desk all day, so roles like a bus driver, an oil rig worker, a store manager or a restaurant manager.

“These people aren’t sitting at a desk all day but they do have a mobile phone with them.

“They’re on Facebook from a social point of view but they’re not bothering with LinkedIn from a professional point of view.”

Robinson adds teachers are another talent pool that are more likely to use Facebook over LinkedIn due to the site’s ability to control who sees posts made on their personal accounts, so pupils will not be able to see personal posts teachers put up online, for example.

Meanwhile, recruitment industry analyst and adviser and former Jobsite group marketing director Felix Wetzel told Recruiter Facebook’s targeting of blue-collar sectors will not adversely affect professional network LinkedIn any time soon.

“I don't think it will harm LinkedIn in the short term, as it [Facebook Jobs] focuses more on blue-collar workers, so the remaining advertising in local newspapers and the emergent revenues of companies like JobToday and CornerJob are under greater threat. It will also affect companies like Jobvite that have made mobile applications a cornerstone of their business and might finally lead to a rethink about the usefulness of ATS.

“Obviously, we have seen many companies with big audiences and wide reach try their hand on recruitment (MSN, Google, AOL...) and it didn't work out. It comes all down to execution and getting advertisers to use you without a big salesforce.

“Facebook could build something really special with lookalike audiences and culture fit through data analysis. The big question is: will it work for the jobseeker? If it does – as they find jobs faster and in a frictionless way – it could be massive.”

But Matt Alder, talent acquisition and innovation consultant at talent attention consultancy Metashift, told Recruiter Facebook has always been LinkedIn’s biggest competitor.

“Facebook has always been looking at ways of monetising its massive audience and new ways of doing that.

“They have already shown they are interested in the enterprise market through the launch of Workplace – their internal comms tool – so whether this is the right product and is going to work, I think there’s a more underlying theme or danger that Facebook now intends to move into this market and it will be interesting to see what happens.”

Recruiter contacted Facebook to find out when the service will be rolled out to the UK and Ireland but was told there are no further details about when this may happen at present.