A new professional networking Facebook app has emerged to make finding your next career easier. BranchOut is an application that allows you to create a professional profile on Facebook. By downloading the app, the career information you currently have in your Facebook profile automatically gets added to your BranchOut profile, and with just two clicks, the skills, education and history listed in your LinkedIn profile can be added as well. Don’t want the photos you uploaded from last month’s beach vacation linked to your professional profile? Not to worry, BranchOut displays only professional data, never any personal pictures.
According to BranchOut, when it comes to making a career move “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” BranchOut gives you the power to make further connections with the hundreds of Facebook connections you already have. The application allows you to not only see your professional connections but your friend’s connections as well. Chances are you could be just one degree of separation away from someone working at the location of your next dream job. BranchOut argues that you can turn “500 Facebook friends into 50,000 professional connections.”
Searching on BranchOut is also easy. You can search by location, position, company, or with any keyword you would like.
After quickly reading BranchOut’s overview, they had me convinced to sign up and apparently almost a million others as well. In just one week, BranchOut’s user base grew from 32,897 to 817,367. Following a rocky start in August 2010, new investors and a recent site redesign appear to have established BranchOut as the professional networking tool that Facebook users have been searching for.
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However, the real question that the recent success of BranchOut brings up is: Will this app help Facebook move further into LinkedIns domain? Or, will users keep professional activity on professional sites? We already know that Facebook is taking over the world, so the possibly of moving in on LinkedIn’s traffic also seems probable.
Will YOU opt to “unleash the power of your Facebook connections with BranchOut” or remain loyal to LinkedIn?
