So apparently 2013 is practically over.

Did this year go by super fast or what?

It’s probably all the exciting and cool social media innovations that make it feel this way. Vine Video, Upgraded Facebook Ads, the introduction of Facebook Skills, Tinder… The list goes on, and on, and on! It’s been an incredible year for social recruiting, and for all of us at Jobcast.

The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App went completely mobile, we released our first white paper (a how-to guide for Facebook Recruiting), filmed a Vine recruiting video, co-hosted an awesome webinar with Indeed, were featured on the cover of HR Insights magazine, and our talented CEO, Ryan St. Germaine, gave an inspiring talk at Six:Forty.

It’s been a very good year.

No one wants to read about what’s already happened though. Predictions are where it’s at. In fact, our most popular blog post to date was our social recruiting trends for 2013. And, I hate to brag (that is a bold faced lie!), but ALL of our predictions totally held up.

I could skip the whole prediction thing and stick with a year-end review… You know, play it safe to keep my batting average one for one, but I prefer to live life on the edge.

It’s time for the Social Recruiting Trends 2014 predictions to begin, and I’m going to start with a risky one.

Facebook Goes Professional

Facebook is losing some traction as a means of connecting with close friends and being social in a personal way, but its user base just keeps growing. I predict that many of these users will use Facebook to connect with potential employers, companies, and peers in their field of work.

The introduction of Facebook skills, and the huge rise in the number of companies that are using Facebook to recruit, makes this shift seem more than just possible — almost inevitable.

This prediction is purely my own. I have no data to back me up, other than observing job seekers and my peers, but risky predictions are the most exciting. Let’s see what happens!

Mobile-Optimization or Death

Last year we predicted the rise of mobile recruiting, and we were right. 1 in 6 Facebook users access the network exclusively through mobile. Over 60% of job seekers are using mobile to look for work, and 40% of potential candidates will abandon the application process if it is not mobile-friendly.

Which brings us to our prediction: Mobile friction will become the main deterrent to candidates completing the application process. Failing to have a fully-mobile career site and application process is NOT an option in 2014. Your social recruiting must go mobile.

Niche Recruiting

Gone are the days of simply sending out job posts, and praying that they get seen by candidates who fit your company’s needs, instead of just 12-year-olds and cat ladies with nothing else to do but hang out on the internet.

With all of the data that employers now have access to, and the improved ability to target these candidates based on that information (thank you Facebook Graph Search), social recruiting will become more about reaching a very specific group of candidates.

Recruiters and Employers can use HR Tech to mine data in order to determine exactly what they should be looking for in a potential hire, and then use social networks to find candidates that match that. Equipped with this knowledge they can use Facebook as a tool to find, engage and attract those niche candidates.

Facebook Ads, especially after their recent updates, allow you to reach these candidates easily, as you can get very specific about the audience that they target. This means you can use them to direct job posts to the eyes of those potential hires you most want to reach.

Facebook’s introduction of professional skills to users’ profiles, and they way that they encourage them to connect with others with similar skills by pushing them to related groups and Pages, also gives you a great “in” with specific groups of candidates. You can seek out passive candidates based on the skills they’ve entered and either make contact directly, or you can join groups related to the skills you are looking for in future employees, and engage with users that way.

Facebook just keeps getting better for social recruiting!

Oh, and last but not least:

The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App will take over the world (of social recruiting). That one is definitely true.

Happy New Years’ from the Jobcast Team. May 2014 see all of your recruiting dreams come true!