LinkedIn Needn’t Be Scared Of Facebook’s Social Jobs Apps Just Yet

Last year, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) joined hands with U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to create Social Jobs Partnership in order to leverage social networks for recruiting. Should LinkedIn (NASDAQ:LNKD) be worried now that Social Jobs Partnership has launched an application providing 1.7 million job listings from multiple recruitment organizations include LinkedIn’s primary competitor Monster (NYSE:MWW)?

Not yet in our view. We believe there is fundamental difference in the approach and LinkedIn still has a clear edge.

See our complete analysis for LinkedIn

Facebook is currently aggregating job listings from several recruitment organizations on a single portal. The usability lies in the immense popularity of Facebook and the instant marketing of these jobs to millions of potential candidates.

However, LinkedIn is few steps ahead in the recruitment game. The company not only lists jobs but also provides multiple additional features such as local languages such as Danish and Norwegian, new profile features, notifications, endorsements, the ability to follow thought leaders, sponsored jobs and sales navigator to help both recruiters and candidates. We estimate that simple job listings contribute just about 15% to 20% to LinkedIn’s total value. A lot more comes from what LinkedIn can charge to corporate customers and individual customers for giving them premium search features and ability to market themselves.

LinkedIn is not just listing the jobs for you, it provides a service in helping you find what actually might be right opportunity. It helps you build your network and leverage members to build credibility and reach out to professionals. It helps the recruiters and sales professionals in finding fitting candidates. In short, LinkedIn has created a professional ecosystem, a big machine with countless small moving parts working together to create value.

Job listings, such as the one being provided by Facebook, have existed for a long time. The recent move has just made them visible and available to a much larger audience. LinkedIn shouldn’t be too worried as of now, but it also can not simply ignore the progress that Facebook is making in recruitment services, which could emerge as a strong long-term rival.

Our price estimate for LinkedIn stands $60, implying a discount of about 50% to the market price.

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