Review of Facebook's BranchOut app

Image by Royalty Free/Corbis

The June jobs report came out last week and the news was not good.  Only 18,000 new jobs were added.  Unemployment is at 9.2%.  What that means is that job seekers must use every tool they can in their search.  Facebook's BranchOut app is one of those tools



BranchOut Tree

EASE OF USE

I found BranchOut fairly easy to use.  It took the basic data (picture, company, education, contact info) from my personal profile.  I was able to fill in the rest of the profile from my resume.  I just cut and pasted the data in the appropriate sections.  If you want to use a different picture you can just upload a new one.  It would be good if you could take data from a Linkedin profile but it seems access has been blocked.

What I didn't like were the requirements to complete the profile.  After I entered all the pertinent data I had to "like" the fanpage, answer a survey, then give an endorsement (this one isn't so bad).  I think these are shameless promotional tactics.  I felt like I was being shilled.

POSSIBLE BENEFITS

Some of the benefits I see are:

1. More online exposure thus making it easier for recruiters to find you.
2. Job listings are from Indeed.com.  I think the listings are better quality.  They're more likely to be legitimate and current.

3. BranchOut lists the companies from your friends profiles so you may discover that you have an inside connection.

BRANCHOUT OR LINKEDIN: THAT IS THE QUESTION

Well...If you're already on Facebook then I don't think it's much of a problem to maintain a BranchOut profile.  If you're not then I'm not sure how much benefit it would be to have a BranchOut profile.  Seems there are new networking sites popping up every day.  If you're not careful you could spend more time updating profiles than looking for jobs.  That's not helpful.


What has been your experience with BranchOut?


Do you have a BranchOut and a Linkedin profile?