Despite boasting some 65 million local businesses visited by a billion users monthly, Facebook Inc. hasn’t yet offered a way for businesses to scout and hire staff — until now.

The company on Wednesday announced it’s allowing businesses in the U.S. and Canada to post job openings. The launch follows a test last year when the company announced it was “running a test for Page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates.”

The update to its Pages feature for businesses will now enable them to post jobs and receive applications directly through the news feed, using the status updater. The job posting, with details such as salary and work hours, will then be available to see on the page’s “Jobs” tab. These postings can also be boosted via advertising to reach more users.

Facebook said the process of applying for a job will be easier because it can fill in some parts of the form for applicants with the name, age, work history and location information they’ve already provided. If for some reason that information is not applicable, users can edit the form. The same goes for the profile image, which will automatically be used in the initial application. Completed applications will be sent via Messenger.

Facebook has reported that during its research into such a feature, it found companies were struggling in the hiring process, while most people were always on the lookout for better opportunities even if they aren’t actively seeking a new job. “It’s early days but we’re excited to see how people use this simple tool to get the job they want and for businesses to get the help they need,” Facebook’s vice president of business and platform, Andrew Bosworth, said in a statement to VentureBeat.

While LinkedIn, whose acquisition by Microsoft Corp. closed in late December, might be operating in a more professional environment, Facebook has certainly entered into the latter’s slipstream offering something LinkedIn didn’t – actual job listings. At the same time small businesses, and perhaps large ones, could benefit from the feature in terms of job postings being shared, reaching a wider swath of Facebook users. Businesses can also opt to turn their job postings into ads, giving Facebook some revenue.

The feature, for web and mobile, is now rolling out to business pages in the U.S. and Canada, with other countries to follow.

Photo courtesy of Facebook