Design a Facebook jobs product for small businesses hiring local staff
Company: Meta
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Facebook has noticed more and more small businesses posting that they need to hire, a trend that grew on its own rather than from any feature built for it. The company has decided to invest in jobs. How would you design a product that serves this need?
```hint Two sides of one trend
The trend starts with businesses, but a job post only helps if the right nearby people see it and act on it. Decide whose problem you solve first and what Facebook offers that a dedicated job site does not.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- What should the investment achieve: direct revenue from the jobs product, more activity from businesses and people on Facebook, or both?
- Does "help wanted" mean only temporary or seasonal work, or permanent roles as well?
- Is the rise concentrated in certain businesses or jobs, such as restaurants and shops, or spread across all kinds of small businesses?
- Should applying happen inside Facebook, or should the product connect job seekers to the business through existing channels such as Pages and Messenger?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A reading of the signal: why small businesses already post hiring needs on Facebook and what that approach fails to give them
- Segments on both sides, types of small business and types of job seekers, with a justified focus
- The steps of the hiring journey that Facebook is well placed to solve with its local reach, profiles and messaging, and the steps better left to others
- A prioritized product with a first version for both businesses and job seekers, and a monetization approach consistent with the goal
- Success metrics for both sides that include whether jobs actually get filled, with guardrails for scams, discrimination and privacy
### Follow-up Questions
- How would you stop fake or misleading job posts from reaching job seekers?
- Many people do not want their friends or current employer to see that they are looking for work. How does that shape the design?
- Employment advertising is subject to anti-discrimination rules in many markets. How do those rules constrain how you match jobs with people?
Overview: A product design case in which Facebook responds to a rise in small-business hiring posts by investing in jobs. It tests reading a usage signal, segmenting businesses and job seekers, choosing which hiring needs to solve, prioritizing a first version, monetization and two-sided success metrics.