A Few of my Favorite Facebook Apps..

When I first got Facebook in college, it was more of a way to connect with the people in my dorm room. I checked in once in awhile purely for friend requests and pokes. I never would have thought that 5 years later, it would become a huge social networking site, where I could check my friends’ status, play fun games, connect with friends and family members, or even find jobs and roommates. They have since developed thousands of applications for your desktop and the web. While Bumper-stickers and Scrabulous may be fun (and addicting) there are some other great Facebook applications that recent graduates and young professionals should take full advantage of. I have listed 5 of my favorites below:

LinkedIn Contacts: This app allows you to share and view your LinkedIn contacts. After typing in your LinkedIn account information, you can view all of your contacts and visit their Facebook profile or add them as a friend. This is a great way to take that connection a step further.

Jobs|Indeed: This website is one of my favorite sites for finding a job, and the facebook app is even better. It searches jobs based on your “resume” which is taken off of your job experience listed on your Facebook profile, and finds places similar to those positions at locations where your friends work. To test it out I typed in my profile and it immediately gave me an incredible amount of job listings for Project manager (my current position) at locations such as Kaiser and Microsoft where friends of mine work. Why is this is a great idea? You have an automatic inside connection at a company you are interested in. 

Gradzilla: This monster of an app from US News and Weekly Report, allows students to access the magazine’s rankings and info on graduate programs. You can search for schools by location, discipline or name, and add them to your list of favorites. You can even send polls to your friends asking them what graduate school they think you should go to. 

Causes: It can be hard to continue volunteering after college, without the many posters around campus reminding you of meetings, and continuous email feeds. Fortunately, this application allows you to stay connected by creating or joining a cause you love, which is linked to a registered non-profit organization. Once you join, you can donate, invite friends to raise awareness and be notified of upcoming events and fundraisers. It’s proof that facebook can really be a viable platform for social change.

Jobster: They had me at the tagline, ” There’s more to life than poking.” This app takes finding jobs to a new level, enabling you to join the “talent network” of your choice of company or field, and in turn receive personalized job alerts. You can also post your resume, and see if you have an inside connection at the company of your choice based on your friend network. If you don’t believe me, ask the 2, 720 daily active users. This applications is a must for anyone on facebook looking for a job. 

Tags: applications, connections, Facebook, graduate, Job Searching