Last week, Facebook announced a new partnership with the Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies to create a new venture called the Social Jobs Partnership. The Social Jobs Partnership provides its Facebook fans with links to its partnering sites, as well as other sites job seekers may find valuable. For example, My Skills My Future, one of the companies featured on the Social Jobs Partnership Facebook page, helps job seekers who are looking to change careers decide what careers they may be qualified for based on their current skill set.

Eventually, the project may feature a jobs posting system available directly through the social network. While recruiters and employers seem to like Facebook over LinkedIn as a way to interact with prospective employees, job seekers (at least survey responders from Europe) prefer connecting with prospective employers using LinkedIn. The reason? These job seekers think Facebook isn’t the right place to be interacting with professionals and feel uncomfortable sharing any private information with companies and recruiters.

Image from http://skyschmidt.com/uncategorized/facebook-vs-linkedin/

I tend to agree with them. I wouldn’t want prospective employers talking with me through Facebook, and I’m pretty sure the majority of my peers would agree. How many people do you know who have changed their Facebook profile name to something other than their real name, say switching out their last name for their middle name? They’re doing that to avoid having potential employers find them on Facebook. If Facebook users don’t even want their profile names, not even the information in their profile, accessible to prospective employers, do you really think users will want to interact with companies online?

Another point to consider is there’s already a social network out there that allows recruiters and employers to interact with prospective employees. Ever heard of LinkedIn? Apparently Facebook is trying steal improve upon another social media site’s idea again.

I’m not trying to hate on Facebook completely, but I think it needs to take a step back and continue being good at what it does so well already: allowing users to interact with old classmates, friends, and family members. As someone who spent more than a year searching for a job, the idea of someday interacting with recruiters and companies on Facebook is unappealing. Let’s keep our Facebook profiles personal and leave the professional social networking to LinkedIn, shall we?