Clicking on to a dream job
As Facebook gets set to grow even bigger, what does the future hold for jobs and investors? Report by Peter Flanagan and John Costello
Billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg strolls around Dublin during a trip to the capital last year
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It seems like the dream job. The staff are young, trendy -- and well paid. The work is demanding but fun. And this week many of the Dublin employees heard that they are in line for a bonus that could top €100,000.
On top of all that, there are lots of vacancies. . .
So how do you get a job with a company like Facebook, which hit the headlines this week when it announced that it was moving towards a public flotation? Experts predict the move could eventually put a value on the company of €100bn.
The social-networking site seems to have been around for years, but it only came to Ireland in October 2008, when it selected Dublin as the site for its European headquarters.
Like Google and Microsoft before it, Facebook is believed to have been attracted by a combination of the highly educated workforce, decent quality of life for workers and a favourable tax regime.
It employs around 400 people at its offices on Hanover Quay, close to Google's own European HQ at Grand Canal Dock.
However, it is looking for new premises in Ireland and is actively ramping up its recruitment drive here, with the expectation that staff levels will top 600 by the end of the year.
The working experience in Facebook is said to be similar to most of the newer technology giants in Ireland today. Microsoft and Google have far bigger operations in Dublin, with well over a thousand staff each, but the pattern of an excellent working environment in return for hard work and long hours is the same for both.
One former staffer who believes the trade-off will be worth it for most people said: "The working atmosphere is relaxed but intense at the same time. In the time I was there, I never had my boss screaming at me or anything like that but most employees are over-achievers. There's no need for the boss to be on their backs.
"Working hours are fairly flexible in the sense that you can start as late as 10am in most teams but everyone knows what their targets are and that can mean 10 or 12-hour days at times.
"The company also lays on a lot of staff nights out where food and drink is paid for. They seem very much focused on staff seeing themselves as a family and that fosters a lot of loyalty among the workers.
"Zuckerberg has this public reputation of being a bit 'different' but he is loved by the staff. Combine that with the pay and it is a great place to work."
He's certainly right about the pay. Packages are comparable to those at Google, where the average salary is over €78,000. Meals are free.
Throw in the bonus of having options in Facebook shares -- which will bring more than a third of the Dublin staff windfalls of over €100,000 when the company finally goes public -- and you have an attractive package for most prospective employees.
So what is the company looking for in new employees?
Applying for a job in the Dublin office is pretty straightforward. The company headhunts some staff but in most cases it uses employee referrals and advertises jobs on the Facebook website www.facebook.com/careers.
Currently there are over 60 positions advertised, mostly in sales and finance, with a smattering of software roles as well. Once you apply, the usual system of interviews and call backs is followed.
There is no hard and fast rule as to what they look for in a candidate but they are known to want staff who are very flexible. That allows the firm to easily move employees to the growing businesses.
Joining the firm in a sales role could lead to roles in software coding, for example. Many of the roles require a second European language.
Facebook does not have a hard policy about what qualifications it looks for. Most staff are graduates but the right experience can compensate for the lack of an academic qualification. It is normal for the company to employ people with no degree but several years' experience in a particular field.
Facebook, which was started by Mark Zuckerberg while studying in Harvard University eight years ago, currently boasts 845 million users. This figure is expected to cross the billion mark in August, when one seventh of the world's entire population will have an account.
In Ireland, there are over two million accounts, with the average person spending four hours and 10 minutes on Facebook every month.
American users are even more captivated, spending almost eight hours engaging with their Facebook friends each month. Over half of the current 845 million monthly users log on to the site every day, says the company.
With each user having an average of 130 friends, Zuckerberg has created a massive network that sees four billion items shared every day. It is this interaction that has made Facebook one of the biggest sources of online traffic and this brings with it advertising, transactions, commerce and cash.
However, while Facebook's net income in 2011 rose 65pc to $1bn (€750m), off revenues of $3.71bn (€2.82bn), Zuckerberg will be under pressure to justify his company's huge valuation.
At $100bn, the company is valued at 100 times earnings and 27 times last year's sales. This is more than double the valuation bestowed upon Google when it floated in 2004.
But while Google may have surpassed the one billion-user mark in 2011, its users are not nearly as engaged with the brand as Facebook followers. People log on to Google to use it as a launch pad to be taken elsewhere. Also, while on Google you are recognised by your computer's IP address, whereas Facebook is the first site that has managed to directly link our online identities with our real-world selves. Thus the opportunities for targeted advertising are unrivalled.
Every time you share a link, listen to a song, click a "like" button or play a game on Facebook, a massive fast-churning data machine captures your every click. Zuckerberg's focus is now to better help advertisers leverage this user information to match their ads with the right audience.
But Facebook is not just content with being the biggest social network site. It is developing itself into a platform that allows others to build applications and tools, similar to Apple's iPhone, to generate wider revenue.
So just as Microsoft dominated the personal-computing era by owning Windows, the biggest software platform, Facebook is seeking to become an unrivalled platform in the new social-computing era.
Indeed, investors are gambling on the fact that one company has dominated every technology cycle and eventually ended up being valued at around $200bn (€150bn).
Many now see Facebook as the company that will continue to dominate social computing.
- Peter Flanagan and John Costello
Originally published in
