By Fatima Saliu, Head of Policy Marketing, and Sean O’Reilly, Mentorship Engineering Manager
Earlier this year, we made a pledge to train 1 million US business owners and equip more people with the digital skills they need to compete in the modern workplace. Today we’re sharing updates about new tools and resources to further this commitment, helping people access new career opportunities.
We’re launching Learn with Facebook, a career development site that provides an introduction to both the hard and soft skills people need to advance in today’s digital workforce. Learn with Facebook’s lessons include “Ace Your Interview” and “Manage Your Content Marketing” and are free to access. They feature case studies, insider tips and resources from industry experts.
To help make Learn With Facebook’s lessons as accessible as possible, we’re partnering with Goodwill Community Foundation to offer this training across the US. We’ll work closely with them to develop training resources for individuals of all backgrounds and education levels.
We also know that people need easier ways to find jobs too. In 2017 we launched Jobs on Facebook and to date, our jobs product has helped people find over 1 million jobs. To improve our jobs tool for both people and businesses, in addition to posting jobs to their Page, businesses can now share their jobs in Groups. Today, more than 200 million people on Facebook are members of Groups they consider meaningful, and this update will allow people who may be interested and qualified to better discover open roles.
Finally, we’re making updates to our Mentorship tool, which helps connect people in Groups who are seeking mentorship with others in their community who have relevant experience or expertise. Now, we’re making it easier for people in Groups to choose a mentorship partner based on their goals and interests.
People can sign up to share information about what they’re offering or looking for, and then others in the Group can browse a list of those available people to find a match and reach out directly. Each week the tool gives pairs helpful prompts to keep the conversation going.
As people embark on and continue their career journey, our hope is that these free resources can give them the support they need to advance in today’s digital economy.