Just when you thought Facebook recruiting couldn't get any better...

The social network rolls out Facebook Skills!

Employers and recruiters all over the globe rejoice —

this is awesome, in a totally nerdy HR kind of way.

The reasons that the addition of a skills section to Facebook is so awesome are many, some are obvious, some less so. First, let me break down exactly what this new feature is for those of you who don't obsessively check The Next Web #Facebook, and then we'll look at how FB skills will benefit your recruiting.

Facebook's new 'Professional Skills' option shows up under the 'Work and Education' heading in the about section of a user's profile. The new feature basically allows users to add a list of their professional skills to their profile a la LinkedIn, thus making that information available to their connections, and through Facebook Graph Search. Even cooler, when a Facebook user adds professional skills to their profile, the list does not remain static. Facebook takes the information they've entered and links them to relevant groups based on each skill.

What's to love:

Organic Interaction

Linking users’ skills to groups automatically fosters engagement and allows employers to interact with potential candidates without it feeling forced. By introducing these skill-based groups, Facebook is giving recruiters and employers a foot in the door with candidates, even if they are not connected to them in any other way.

A Shift Towards the Professional

Facebook has lost traction amongst tweens. Tweens are too busy sending Snapchats of themselves dressed as Miley Cyrus to check Facebook these days (and you thought us millennials were a bad bunch!). In response, Facebook is growing up and becoming more professional.

Last year 52% of job seekers surveyed by Jobvite reported using Facebook to look for work. The social network is becoming less about memes and drunken photos, and more about forging connections with others in your field, showing off accomplishments, and professional skills.

This shift in focus is bad news for companies using Facebook to advertise crop tops, but fantastic news for recruiters. Tweens can't legally work for you, nor, I'm betting, would you want them to! The introduction of Facebook Skills is changing how users perceive Facebook; they are becoming more open to it as a place to connect professionally, which makes them more open to being contacted by employers and recruiters. Awesome.

Prompts to Make HR Smile

Every time Facebook rolls out a new feature, users get a barrage of prompts urging them to check it out. Prompts encouraging users to fill out the skills section of their profile also encourages them to update the rest of their profile information, because it reminds them that that part of their Facebook Page exists. The more information users make available to Facebook's Graph, the more employers and recruiters have to go on when searching for candidates.

Facebook Skills bring us one step closer to that, ever elusive, employer dream of using Graph search to make the recruiting of passive candidates easy for even the most difficult to fill positions. Our day will come!

Facebook Ads Now 20% Better for Recruiting

Okay, so I made the 20% part up, but the sentiment is all true! More searchable information available on users’ profiles means you can get even more targeted with your Facebook Ads campaigns. We already know that Facebook Ads are the most effective tool for social recruiting. We also know that the reason that they are so effective is that they allow you to target talent based on demographics, work history, occupation, education, location, interests, and now, SKILLS! Yes, skills, the most pertinent of all information! If you thought Facebook Ads were awesome before, just you wait until users start updating their profiles to share all of their mad skillz, and you can target them based on things like "joinery skills", "CSS skills", and "customer service wizardry".

Or don't wait. Check out our tutorial on targeting candidates with Facebook Ads, download the Jobcast Facebook recruiting app, and get recruiting! Heck, if you read through the tutorial and decide that using Facebook Ads is too much of a hassle, just sign up for Jobcast Enterprise and we'll handle everything for you.So then you can have more free time to update your own Facebook profile. We're nice like that!