Identified Is A Professional Network Built On Facebook

Finding a job is difficult, but Identified is a new service that wants to help you build a professional network on the back of the social network you likely already use: Facebook.

The recently launched professional search service uses your Facebook information to build a professional profile for you, give you a numerical score (that can be improved by providing more data), and connect you with businesses that your friends and personal network already work for.

There’s a lot to like about Identified: it uses your actual personal network to build a professional profile that’s indicative of the people you actually know. Sign in with Facebook, and the service pulls down your work history, your education, and the depth and breadth of your personal network to assign you a numerical score. You can improve that score by adding more information about yourself that will make you more attractive to recruiters and companies already using the service to find prospects or inviting your friends.

The service wants to challenge LinkedIn by giving users the ability to use their personal connections to find new opportunities, as opposed to forcing them to build a new network around people they’ve worked with in the past but can’t help them find a new job. Identified is still new, and while there are definitely partner companies looking for talent using the service, you do give up a lot of information to Identified just to have a profile, and your rank is completely public: no hiding it if it’s subpar.

Time will tell if Identified attracts the businesses needed to make it a professional search service that will stick around for the long term, but it’s still new, and right now it’s a “sign up and wait for something to happen” kind of network. Identified is free and available now to the public. You have to sign in with Facebook to look around.

Identified [via Forbes]