Five years ago I was invited to speak at a corporate event by a Fortune 500 company, by their HR Department, to speak to their employees about the advantages of joining LinkedIn as a “professional network”.   Do you remember those times?  When HR folks were actually encouraging their software developers, engineers, and professional level employees to join LinkedIn?! Today, HR/Talent Pros would be publicly hanged for encouraging their IT staff and other hard to find talent to put their profiles up on LinkedIn.  You are basically encouraging your employees to go out and put up a billboard that says: “I’m available! Come find me and make me an offer!”  That is what LinkedIn has become – Generation-Next-Job-Board.  Don’t get me wrong – I love LinkedIn!  They are one of the largest sources of talent for my company.  When I was on the corporate side of the Talent desk – I still loved LinkedIn – because I could more easily yank talent from my competitors – but I also hated it for that same reason! Facebook is what LinkedIn was 5 years ago – the Haters just don’t want to admit it. Recruiting Pros, both corporate and 3rd party, love to rail against anyone who feels Facebook is the “new” LinkedIn – in terms of recruiting potential.  Here’s why – The 3 Myths about Facebook as a Recruiting Source: 1. Facebook is for your private life – LinkedIn is for your professional Life! You hear this right!  This is the same type of myth that LinkedIn perpetuated for years – “We are a professional network!” – yeah, right.  You might have started that way – but you are now one big job board – thank you!   Facebook is a “social” network.  Yes, but this is fast changing and will continue to change as people become more comfortable living one life, and learning how to use the Facebook tools and Apps to have both a social life and a professional life on Facebook. 2. There are too many people on Facebook to be effective as a recruiting source. This is the lazy myth.  Basically, the haters are going to discount Facebook because there are too many people to choose from and that’s hard.  Sorry – you don’t get to say that!  Figure it out – the talent is there, the tools to find them are there – stop making excuses!  Facebook is 1 degree of separation for every person in the world.  Any time you spend trying to figure out how to take advantage of that won’t be a waste. 3. Facebook is a fade, it will be die out in 3 years.  The one thing I know for sure is, Facebook has changed how our society communicates.  As a recruiting Pro – I want to be a part of how our society communicates. Will something new come out – sure it will. Will Facebook be gone in 3 years – probably not!   In the meantime, we have been given a list of every possible candidate we might ever want to contact, or at least be within one contact point of every candidate – Fade or not – Talent Pros need to take advantage – now. If it’s dead in 3 years, I’ll move to the next source – but for now – I’m using it!