The jobs and career community site Glassdoor is hoping to ride on the coattails of the Facebook IPO hotness with this evening’s launch of a new Facebook-based product called “Inside Connections.” With this new option, which is really just an enhancement to the company’s website, users can sign in to Glassdoor.com using their Facebook account information and then immediately see where their friends work.
Conceptually, the product isn’t all that different from what BranchOut has already been doing, or what Monster.com is doing with its BranchOut copycat BeKnown. Using BranchOut’s Facebook app, for example, you can view which friends work where and who they may know at companies you’re interested in. And, like Glassdoor’s new Inside Connections, the others are also built on top of the Facebook social graph.
The difference is that with BranchOut, the goal is to create a mini LinkedIn right on top of Facebook. You can post projects, share links, post jobs, search through people and companies and grow your network. Glassdoor’s Inside Connections, meanwhile, isn’t meant to be a standalone experience. Instead of duplicating the Linked In experience on Facebook, it’s using Facebook to enhance its own website.
After you’ve authenticated using your Facebook credentials, when you’re browsing through company profiles on Glassdoor.com, you’ll see who among your friends works at the company whose profile you’re currently viewing. You can then read all the fodder that makes Glassdoor so popular – the job listings, anonymous reviews and ratings, salary reports and interview questions and reviews, all of which are associated with specific job titles from current and past employees and job candidates.
Glassdoor currently has data on 150,000 companies, including 100% of those that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Fortune 500 and the S&P 500. Glassdoor has raised $22.2 million to date through its Series C that closed last year. Inside Connections will be live on the company’s website as of 9 PM PT today.