Who Would Recruit On Facebook? Try Pepsi, Gap, AIG And Oracle...

It’s easy to make fun of Facebook . The depressed stock, the misguided political comments, the unguarded vanity of high school “friends”—all tend to reinforce the inanity of the social network.

But a billion people still use it. Even those who complain (like me) still use it. And for large, multinational companies, it’s becoming an increasingly valuable tool for recruiting employees.

Work4, previously known as Work4 Labs, has been on our radar since the fall. Run by CEO Stephane Le Viet, a 33-year old Frenchman, the San Francisco-based company helps companies like Pepsi, Gap and Oracle recruit for entry-level and hourly positions via Facebook. For the moment, it seems to be working.

The company has posted 6 million jobs through its clients’ Facebook pages. Facebook itself began using the company to fill positions two weeks ago. "That pretty much killed any competitive threats we could've faced," Le Viet laughs. BranchOut, a company that previously competed in the space, pivoted away from it last fall. Companies like Identified and Jobvite still offer competing tools.

Monthly revenue at Work4, meanwhile, is doubling year-over-year. The company is on pace to make between $5-$10 million in 2013, up from "low millions" last year.

For an 86-person company though, that still implies a serious burn-rate. Le Viet counters that developers in France, where Work4 headquarters its tech team, cost 1/3 of those in the U.S. after tax subsidies. And 26 of the company's 86 employees are interns (whoa). Still, Work4 intends to raise more cash next year. It last raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Matrix Partners in September.

Work4's enterprise package starts at $10,000 annually, but increases as companies add features. Multinationals that maintain unique Facebook pages in different countries pay the $10,000 fee for each page. ( Intel , for example, pays for 11 different pages.) Small businesses can use a free service, but when they pay to advertise the openings through Facebook, Work4 takes a 25% cut.

Since Work4's enterprise business continues to generate nearly all of its sales, I asked Le Viet why he even bothers to target small businesses. "We spend a lot of time thinking about how to align as much as possible with Facebook," he answers. Local, he explains, is a huge priority for the social network, so Work4 intends to continue working in that area regardless of the immediate ROI. Smaller customers are also helpful in terms of testing new services and features.

That strategy illustrates the company's current reliance on Facebook, something it is eager to mitigate going forward. It recently released a tool for recruiting through Twitter and intends to introduce a product for Pinterest in the coming months. A Facebook-oriented version of LinkedIn 's popular Recruiter tool is also in the works. Le Viet's vision: "Social recruiting software for the enterprise."

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