Facebook Expanding Into Job Listings and Banking Services

Facebook wants to become your job board of choice and your online bank, as it vies to drive engagement, utility and users' virtual homepage on the web and mobile.

The social network is supporting an innovative app (now in beta) from Australia's Commonwealth Bank, which would enable customers to make payments to third parties and Facebook friends on the site, using its own authentication system, as it currently does for its online customers and its CommBank Kaching mobile app users.

"There are certain things, whether itʼs financial services, or banking where I donʼt necessarily want my friends to know exactly what Iʼm doing, right? I want to be able to go in and have an experience with my advisor or my bank and have that be a one-on-one experience," said David Robinson, Facebook's director of global marketing solutions, U.S. financial services, to Fortune.

While Facebook declined to confirmed other banks it's working on virtual banking services with, a spokesperson did comment to Fortune: "Facebook is a platform and a partnership company. We are supportive of brands and agencies, across industries, using the platform to better serve their customers."

As Business Insider notes, Facebook could enhance banking with more deal offers. Cons may include more spam messages, poor to no customer service, and increased risk of privacy invasion — perhaps the biggest barrier to driving user adoption.

Addressing another need to become more of a must-have to its users, Facebook is also jumping into the global online job-recruitment industry, estimated at $4.3 billion. Following the successful IPO of LinkedIn, recruiting has undergone a dramatic restructuring as pioneering (but generic) job boards like Monster.com are increasingly less attractive to recruiters, and resumes, are embarrassingly passé.

Facebook's job board will aggregate job postings of third-party providers including BranchOut, Jobvite, and Work4 Labs, launching in August — and benefit from the huge driver that is job listings.

The social network began a partnership with the U.S. Labor Department and other partners in October “to explore and develop systems where new job postings can be delivered virally through the Facebook site at no charge," notes Nasdaq.com. Companies and corporate recruiters already using Facebook include, Unilever, Boeing, Dell Inc., Microsoft Corp., Walt Disney Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 

Initially, Facebook won’t monetize the service, and according to Nasdaq's report, "It doesn't feel like a big effort that they've worked on for a long time. It feels lightweight." Recruiters today are looking for “web presence,” including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr and often ask for submission of video from a job-seeker.

"I don't ever have anybody come in and hand me a paper resume," commented Gretchen Gunn, principal at MGD Services, to CNN. "Ten years ago, your fax machine was loaded when you came in the morning. Not anymore." Gunn rejects paper resumes handed to her at job fairs, "because that paper resume has little chance of leaving my roll-along briefcase, which houses my laptop, iPad and other electronics. Our entire recruiting process is now online."

Does adding job listings and banking services make Facebook more of a destination or dilute the brand? Is the site's security sufficient that you'd trust it to handle either (or both)? Share your thoughts below.