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Facebook launches new tools to help users get jobs

Facebook (FB) wants to help you get a job.

The social media giant on Tuesday completed a U.S. launch of Learn with Facebook, a career development platform offering courses to help people learn how to use digital tools, coding for workplace development, and marketing skills. The platform currently offers 13 courses of between 6 to 11 minutes each, a “bite-sized” library the company intends to build out over time, Fatima Saliu, Facebook head of policy and Americas marketing, said in a product presentation Tuesday.

The U.S. debut follows international roll-outs in India in 2017 and Germany and France in June of this year. The target audience for the platform is adult learners, as well as those who have left the workforce and are looking to build or rebuild hard and soft skills to return, Saliu said.

The product launch comes as the company continues to build out its core Facebook offerings beyond its newsfeed, status and photo-sharing functionalities. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year that Facebook would be introducing a new dating feature, allowing existing users to find a partner without having to download an additional match-making app. Facebook Marketplace, a segment of Facebook’s main site allowing users to buy and sell personal goods, has grown to 800 million people, Zuckerberg said in October.

Interface for Learn with Facebook (courtesy of Facebook)
Interface for Learn with Facebook (courtesy of Facebook)

In addition to unveiling Learn with Facebook as a separate website in the US, the company on Tuesday also announced updates to the existing job-hunting and career-advancement tools on its core Facebook platform. Jobs on Facebook, a global tool that has helped 1 million users find employment since launching in 2017, has expanded to allow businesses to share listings within Facebook Groups instead of confining them to separate pages. And Facebook modified to its Mentorship tool to allow users to find their own mentors within Groups, rather than waiting for a Group administrator or moderator to make the match.

Saliu said the new career-centric features are “not necessarily” intended to be direct competitors to existing employment-tech players like LinkedIn. The Microsoft-owned platform offers its own subscription-based, career skills-learning platform called Lynda, which it acquired for $1.5 billion in 2015. Saliu said Facebook does not have plans to monetize Learn with Facebook.

When it comes to posting job listings, small businesses tend to dominate as the primary beneficiaries of Jobs on Facebook, said Gaurav Dosi, jobs product manager at Facebook. Ninety million businesses are already actively using Facebook, he added.

“For small businesses, especially If you’re juggling multiple hats, you’re doing many things. You need a simple place, a free resource where you can go and do this. And that’s really what the value of the Facebook tool is,” Dosi said.

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck

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