This is ridiculous.

Doesn’t Facebook know that summer is for lounging about, eating too many hotdogs, and watching summer league baseball?!? Apparently there’s no good baseball or highly processed meat-like foods available in Silicon Valley.

That’s the only explanation I can think of for all of the changes and updates Facebook has been rolling out over the past month.

Really guys, we are not amused! Well, at least I’m not.

But, fear not. I have sacrificed a whole day’s worth of grilling salmon to bring you guys up to date on all that’s new in the world of Facebook and how it will affect your recruiting.

Don’t worry; I’m not going to bore you with Victoria Harbourcats stats, or updates about my friends’ new dogs. I promise to only bore you with the important stuff that will affect you directly.

.. like …

Facebook pulling the Question tool for Pages

Yes, sadly this tool is no longer available for most Pages, although FB has stated that certain Pages may be allowed to keep using Questions, specifically those related to news and media. FB says that the tool is redundant due to the ability to posit questions via images and video, but I know quite a few of our users are unhappy over losing what they found to be an effective tool for engaging fans.

What can you do about it?

Roll with the punches and take this change as a sign that it’s really important to start focusing on posting more great pictures. Although it’s always sad to see familiar tools go, the ability to roll questions into images is awesome, as images do improve engagement quite a bit.

Instavideo

This one started a whole bunch of Team Twitter vs. Twitter Facebook mud-wrestling rumors, which were sadly proven false. But, if those rumors had been true, Instagram video would have been the clear winner as, according to Simply Measured:

· Instagram videos are being used by twice as many brands, and more videos are being posted [than Vine].

· Instagram videos are seeing significantly higher (over 2X) engagement than Instagram photos, suggesting brands should focus more time and energy on them.

Not only that, but Facebook has now made Instagram photos and video embeddable, so they are likely to garner even more attention.

What can you do about it?

Jump on board the Instagram train, but only if it makes sense for you. If you have a lot of staff events, or a cool break room, then post pics and video on Instagram. You can also take super short Instavideos of staff members, either talking about how great their workplace is, or playing foosball in the cool break room.

If you don’t have a lot of interesting stuff going on in your workplace, or you’re mostly targeting candidates who are a little more mature, don’t worry about Instagram — just focus on the basics like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Hot Tip: If you do decide to make Instagram a part of your social recruiting and employer branding, do not go overboard with filters. Choose a few (1-3) that have a similar vibe and stick with them for all of the images you post. This will keep your feed looking cohesive and attractive.

Graph Search for everyone

We have already written about how Facebook Graph Search is going to change the face of recruiting, and now this awesome tool is being rolled out to the general public! I don’t know about you, but I’m super excited.

Graph Search lets you search FB’s databases for people, interests, photos, and places. Graph Search uses “long-tail” searches, which means the more detailed you are, the better your results.

So you can, and should ask specific questions like, “which of my friends like baseball and meat-on-a-stick?” and perform more detailed searches, such as “women with great social media and writing skills living in Holland”. Graph search also promises to be faster, easier to use, and to be better at selecting relevant results than its predecessor. It is also integrated with Microsoft’s web-search engine Bing.

Those using Facebook in U.S. English should have seen their search upgraded last Monday.

What can you do about it?

Other than wasting countless hours hunting down hilarious photos of your high-school crew … LOTS!

First, update as much information about your company as possible, as this will make you more searchable.

Second, think about using the content you post to make your company more searchable. Note that the causes you support, the news you post, and the links you share, all add to your companies profile on FB’s social graph. Ask yourself what you can share that will showcase your company culture and values in a way that will attract the candidates you want to hire.

Third, use Graph Search to find talent with highly specific skills. Because FB users share details about past jobs, interests, education and volunteering on their profiles, Facebook’s Social Graph has access to all of this info and now, so do you. You can use detailed searches to source niche candidates like never before. Pretty darn cool!

But, before we get too excited, remember, this is dependent on those candidates updating their profiles with all of their relevant information. Luckily, Facebook has been making a concerted effort to encourage users to do just this.

Thank you Facebook!

This article has gotten rather long, so we’ll continue next week with more cool new Facebook stuff, like the addition of hashtags and much, much more.