Although you’d more commonly associate the LinkedIn network with business orientated communication and recruitment, a study by online recruiting researchers Potentialpark has shown that employers prefer Facebook as means of interacting with students and graduates. More that 30,000 students and graduates were surveyed, and the online career presence of more than 500 companies was analysed.

In Europe, 48% of the students gave preference to LinkedIn for connecting with recruiters, with only 25% saying they’d rather use Facebook. The majority of respondents said Facebook is “not the right place” to interact with employers or that they are “uncomfortable sharing private information.” However, when it came those doing the recruiting, more that a third of the top 100 employers in Europe have a Facebook Page for recruitment purposes, many of which have upwards of 1,000 fans.

Potentialpark say the main reasons behind this are due to the huge user-base that Facebook possesses, and also state that it is a much more engaging platform than LinkedIn. By being a free to use service with no premium accounts needed for certain features, everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to interaction between employers and recruits. There is more on this is the Mashable article 7 Reasons Why Recruiters Like Facebook More Than LinkedIn.

This does pose an interesting thought though. While prospective candidates have shown that they would rather not use Facebook to engage with employers, it is clearly apparent that employers do want to use this platform. Essentially the candidates will have to do the chasing at the moment, as it is very much a ‘buyers’ market’ right now in terms of the number of people applying for each job vacancy. So if your shopfront is your Facebook profile, you might want to think about having a spring-clean to make sure there is nothing on display that could turn off a potential employer. Some things are meant to be shared with the world, but other content you should really share online privately.