(Facebook Image)

Microsoft-owned LinkedIn might be facing its greatest threat yet with a new feature Facebook rolled out this week.

Businesses in the U.S. and Canada will now be able to post job openings and review applications on the social media site. Applicants can view jobs on a business’ page or in the new “jobs” tab; after clicking the “Apply Now” button, their application pre-populates with information from their Facebook profile. Businesses are able to communicate with potential employees on Facebook’s Messenger.

The feature launched on Wednesday, and a quick search of the Facebook Jobs page found more than 30 postings in the Seattle area Thursday morning. Jobs ranged from software engineer to video editor to dog walker to architect.

(Facebook Image)

In a blog post about the feature, Facebook said the goal is to utilize traffic that is already coming to business pages. According to the site, more than 1 billion people are visiting pages each month.

“This new experience will help businesses find qualified people where they’re already spending their time — on Facebook and on mobile,” Facebook said in the blog post.

Facebook’s existing audience makes this new feature a threat hiring site LinkedIn, which sold to Microsoft for $26 billion in a deal that closed in December. LinkedIn has 467 million total users (and far fewer who use the platform each month) which pales in comparison to Facebook’s 1.8 billion monthly active users. As TechCrunch noted, Facebook’s listings also reach people who aren’t necessarily searching for jobs, which is a market LinkedIn has failed to tap into.

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