While LinkedIn has taken a number of steps to emulate the style of its cooler social cousin Facebook, it’s generally accepted that Facebook, with its fingers in many other pies, has left the recruitment biz alone, choosing to focus on other pursuits and leaving the jobs sector in more established hands.

However, we’ve already seen the efforts of some to turn Facebook into a recruitment hot spot, and why not? Everyone’s on it, after all, and surely it makes sense to marry this hive of personal information with employers looking for their perfect candidates? Or, as the case may be, candidates with their perfect employers.

PathMotion’s Career Inspiration app for Facebook, currently used by the likes of the NHS, Arriva and KPMG, is seeing tremendous success in this field, allowing potential candidates to get a real glimpse of the inner-workings of a company, and for the company to get a real glimpse of their potential workforce.

Within the app, candidates can learn about the company, ask questions, reach out to other employees and navigate job opportunities. Companies can showcase their brand, find prospective candidates, stimulate dialogue and manage their recruitment ambassadors. In essence, it’s a virtual careers fair.

Launched in September 2012, the app was quickly adopted by a variety of large blue chip corporations and SMEs, and has already seen tangible success. The NHS Leadership Academy, for example, saw more than 20,000 impressions and 2,500 social interactions within three months of using it and has since won an award for the Best Use of Social Media at the Social Media Graduate Recruitment Conference and Awards Ceremony.

Charlie Reeve, graduate recruitment and development manager at Arriva, says: “For us, the main advantage of the Careers Inspiration app is that it will potentially reach people who have never considered a career in public transport.

“Also, importantly, it’ll help start conversations with potential candidates so they can really get to know and understand the culture of Arriva and it does it in a way that they’re familiar with. Our target audience is already on Facebook.”

Thousands of brands and companies already have a Facebook presence in order to engage with potential customers, so it makes sense to have a Facebook presence from which to engage with potential employees, too (they’re the ones that’ll be engaging with the customers, after all).

The Careers Inspiration app is indicative of the potential Facebook has on the recruitment landscape. How long until Facebook realizes this itself?