A social network within a social network? You may have heard the growing chatter about BranchOut—with 25 million users, it’s the biggest professional network on Facebook and leaves some people asking the question: “Is LinkedIn in trouble?”

How do job seekers use BranchOut?

BranchOut is a business networking application on Facebook. When you register, you give BranchOut access to your location, education history and work history. It provides you with a unique URL e.g. branchout.com/Ernesta.Rossi  and the opportunity to create a professional profile, including a work history,  summary and specialities. You can upload your resume and tag your profile with specific skills to help recruiters find you more easily.

Why you should care

The biggest benefit is that BranchOut shows you how you may be linked to your dream job through your friends or your friends’ friends. To reach out to your friend’s friend, you can request an introduction. And users can search over three million jobs on the job board. So far, it sounds similar to LinkedIn.

Company recruiters can use BranchOut to post jobs and search for candidates, and they benefit from job seekers sharing the job postings with their network and beyond. Recruiters can also find qualified referrals within their employee connections and post jobs to their company page. Again, not dissimilar to LinkedIn. As well, BranchOut provides both job seekers and job posters with a suite of additional tools and solutions.

So will BranchOut give LinkedIn a run for its money? For users, setting up a BranchOut profile easily connects them to their established and trusted Facebook network.  With the biggest talent pool on the planet already residing on Facebook, and with 78% of job seekers already using Facebook vs. only 35% for LinkedIn[i], BranchOut may very well prove formidable competition to LinkedIn.

If you’re using BranchOut, drop us a line below and share what you see as the benefits and drawbacks compared to LinkedIn.