With 2.13 bil­lion month­ly active users glob­al­ly Face­book is the largest coun­try in the world.  Every month more peo­ple vis­it Face­book than are in Chi­na or India.  Accord­ing to Pew Inter­net over 52% of the entire pop­u­la­tion of the US uses Face­book every day.

Those work­ing at Face­book are work­ing for a very glob­al com­pa­ny.  90% of Face­book users are not even locat­ed in the Unit­ed States.

With over 25,000 employ­ees and over 1,700 open jobs the com­pe­ti­tion is fierce.

But What About Declin­ing Time on the Face­book Site?

With the recent change in the con­tent shown in user’s news­feeds and the talk of Social Media addic­tion Face­book has seen some decline in time spent.  How­ev­er with rev­enues of $13 bil­lion dol­lars per quar­ter or over $50 Bil­lion Dol­lars per year, Face­book has plen­ty of resources to draw from to find ways to improve.  They also employ some of the smartest engi­neers in the world.

Most like­ly Face­book will find ways to grow their user inter­ac­tions over time that far sur­pass­es what they have now.

What do Face­book Employ­ees Real­ly Think about Facebook?

Face­book employ­ees like their jobs and their company.

99% of the employ­ees approve of the CEO and rate the com­pa­ny 4.6 of 5 stars, both some of the high­est rat­ings on the plat­form accord­ing to Glassdoor.com.

So let’s start with the cons…

231 reviews said that “Work life bal­ance is pret­ty tough to main­tain” indi­cat­ing that one has to work hard and get results.

Here is what one review­er said about the work life balance…

“If you don’t learn to make the work life bal­ance work for you, it can be exhaust­ing. But you’ll also be giv­en lots of sup­port with this if you ask for it.

- It does­n’t mat­ter how good you are at your job, chances are you’re going to be sur­round­ed by a ton of oth­er peo­ple who are just as good if not bet­ter. Imposter syn­drome is real, but if you got an offer, you prob­a­bly belong here too.” 

How­ev­er the same review­er also said… 

“Incred­i­ble ben­e­fits, excel­lent com­pen­sa­tion that rewards strong per­for­mance. Lots of auton­o­my,  Tons of room for growth,  Very trans­par­ent from the top down, Strong lead­er­ship,  Intel­li­gent and car­ing colleagues

The most fair and well thought out review process you will find every­where and most impor­tant­ly Excit­ing work” 

But I’m over 30 could I work at Face­book? 

“I’m a 55 year old work­ing in a com­pa­ny where the aver­age age is 28, and I’ve nev­er been hap­pi­er. I have always want­ed to work in a com­pa­ny where I was­n’t the prover­bial square peg, and after near­ly 30 years in the work force, I believe that I have found the com­pa­ny that com­ple­ments my ide­ol­o­gy for how a com­pa­ny should oper­ate. Here are the “Pros” as I see them…

- Lead­er­ship: Mark Zucker­berg, Sheryl Sand­berg, Chris Cox and the rest of the lead­er­ship team. Inspir­ing, smart and total­ly real.

- The Cul­ture: The open­ness is a real thing, we’re trust­ed to do the right thing, mis­takes are expect­ed, being your­self is impor­tant and encour­aged, humil­i­ty is encour­aged and expect­ed, build­ing trust is para­mount, the mis­sion of mak­ing the world a more open and con­nect­ed place isn’t just a cool phrase because it guides every­thing. It’s not about us, it’s about every­one else.

- The Peo­ple: Smart and nice is what I find. The diver­si­ty is bet­ter than any oth­er com­pa­ny I’ve worked at and it’s get­ting bet­ter. Those that are fig­ur­ing out how to make what we do bet­ter for every­one are real­ly good at imple­ment­ing their ideas. Two years ago I did­n’t know what this com­pa­ny real­ly was or if it had a secure future. I can clear­ly see now that they have what it takes to last, and it’s sincere.

- Man­age­ment: Man­agers are hired because they’re good man­agers and not because they’re good at some­thing else. The man­age­ment track is dif­fer­ent than the con­trib­u­tor track and they’re equal in importance.

- Ben­e­fits: Work­ing in the Val­ley it’s hard to dif­fer­en­ti­ate all the ben­e­fits employ­ees receive and Face­book is at least equal to all the major tech com­pa­nies, but com­ing from Seat­tle the ben­e­fits are noth­ing short of incredible.

Grant­ed, I haven’t been with the com­pa­ny for very long and I’m still in the hon­ey­moon peri­od, but I can tell what’s real and what’s not; this place is for real. 

Cons 

Like any tech com­pa­ny, the work is big and com­pli­cat­ed so work/life bal­ance can suf­fer from time to time. The dif­fer­ence is that it’s the pas­sion with­in the indi­vid­u­als that dri­ves them to work long hours and forego time off. Of course there can be times when sched­ule demands force the imbal­ance, but it’s not such that 10–12 hours days become com­mon­place and expect­ed regard­less. We do what we do to get the job done;” 

But How Do I get a Job at Face­book? 

Scour your LinkedIn con­tacts for peo­ple work­ing in Face­book in the areas you are inter­est­ed.  Even if you do not have direct or 2^nd lev­el con­tacts there, LinkedIn is still a great place to send a mes­sage from for advice. Con­tact peo­ple for advice let­ting them know of your expe­ri­ence and accom­plish­ments. See if you can find a few peo­ple who will get on a call with you or at least email.  This is a great way for them to get to know you and your suc­cess­es.  Remem­ber noth­ing beats an inter­nal refer­ral for a job.

Also on LinkedIn you should send a shout out to your friends to see who knows peo­ple at Face­book. Some­times you can find that through your con­tacts 2^nd and 3^rd con­nec­tions but some­times con­nect­ed peo­ple are not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­nect­ed on LinkedIn.

And don’t for­get about Face­book.  See who your friends are con­nect­ed to on Face­book. You can actu­al­ly do a search on Face­book for friends who work at Face­book.  Sim­i­lar­ly to LinkedIn, Face­book can also help you find those who can refer you.  But always ask for advice not for a job.

Good luck in your job search and do let us know if you land that job at Facebook!