*By Conor White*
With only one chance to make a first impression, jobseekers would do well to hone their social media profiles before ever stepping into an office for an interview.
"The way that we look at it is your public profile is really like your resume," said Francesca de Quesada Covey, Facebook's head of jobs and service partnerships. "It's information you want to share."
Job candidates can share ambitions, skills, and job pitches in real time, and receive direct feedback from hiring managers via Facebook's Messenger app, de Quesada Covey said in an interview Monday with Cheddar.
"We have 80 million businesses on the Facebook platform, and we see that 1.6 billion people are connected with businesses," she said. "So we know there's a lot of opportunity there to connect people and businesses."
Many Facebook users may be reluctant to share after it was revealed that 87 million of them had their personal information compromised in the Cambridge Analytica data breach. De Quesada Covey said she understands some people are skittish.
To ease concerns, the social network has introduced new protections for jobseekers. A "view as" feature lets users see what personal information is available when someone else views their public profile. This allows jobseekers to know exactly what potential employers will see.
"We're putting privacy in control of the people using Facebook, because privacy is one of the most important things we're doing at Facebook right now," she said.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/finding-a-job-with-facebook).
Inflated housing prices and long commute times in tech hubs nationwide is "sapping the vitality" from cities, Microsoft President Brad Smith told Cheddar Thursday following the company's announcement it would invest $500 million to address affordable housing and homelessness in and around Seattle, Wash.
TradeStation, the online broker-dealer, is dipping its toes into crypto. Speaking with Cheddar's Tanaya Macheel at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami on Thursday, CEO John Bartleman said crypto trading would be a "natural extension" to the asset classes currently offered on the TradeStation platform.
Abra, the crypto exchange and digital wallet startup, is trying to fundamentally change the way banking is done with a simple consumer-facing app that allows users to effectively create "synthetic" dollars using the inherent value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Bill Barhydt, Abra's co-founder and CEO, explained the strategy to Cheddar's Tanaya Macheel at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami.
Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG announced at the Detroit Auto Show they will form a "broad alliance," but the reality of a partnership may present certain conflicts for both companies. "I think that this is going to be a very difficult friendship to make work because Ford ($F) is expected to make some pickup trucks for Volkswagen, which sounds good because Volkswagen needs those pickups in other markets," Nathan Bomey, business reporter at USA Today, told Cheddar Wednesday.
There is a scene in the 2002 sci-fi film "Minority Report" that has always struck me. John Anderton, the film's protagonist played by Tom Cruise, is running through a mall, bombarded by ads from premium brands like American Express and Lexus that are tailor-made just for him. I was always fascinated by that moment in the film ー because it seemed so far-fetched and dystopian, but at the same time, almost pre-ordained.
After two years and $52 million in funding from some of Silicon Valley’s top investors, the video chat app Houseparty is ready to start making money. On Thursday, the social network announced a partnership with “Heads Up!,” the charades-like game for phones that was created by Ellen DeGeneres and Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Soulja Boy is not shy about expressing his infatuation with three things: wealth, fame, and Tesla. "I love Tesla ($TSLA), man. I think it's one of the most innovative things in the last century," said the rapper, who dressed in a Tesla tracksuit for his interview with Cheddar Wednesday.
Even after a dramatic and high-profile series of privacy violations in 2018, consumers are still willing to surrender personal data to improve their shopping experience ー but only if that data is handled responsibly, Salesforce growth and innovation evangelist Tiffani Bova told Cheddar Wednesday.
A new travel site is looking to make booking a vacation as easy as sending a text message. SnapTravel offers exclusive hotel deals via SMS, in an effort to get customers the hotel they want, when they want it. "Essentially, we want to get you the best hotel, as fast as possible, and as easy as possible," CEO and co-founder Hussein Fazal told Cheddar.
Snap’s Chief Financial Officer, Tim Stone, and Vice President of Investor Relations, Kristin Southey, have both left the company after less than a year. Both departures come as the company is still reeling from a disastrous app redesign and is under federal investigation in connection with a class action shareholder lawsuit.
