By Brian Womack - for Bloomberg
Facebook Inc., operator of the world’s largest social-networking service, is seeking a global head of diversity, as the quickly expanding company’s recruits people from different backgrounds to foster creativity.
The position includes responsibilities around employee recruitment, development and retention, the company said on its website. The diversity chief will build and manage a team focused on diversity, according to the posting.
Facebook, grappling with large rivals such as Google Inc. is ramping up hiring, growing 44 percent to 4,619 employees in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said last month the company plans to “continue to grow our headcount quickly in 2013.”
“We’re a fast-growing company, and this role will help us formalize processes that ensure we scale our diversity at the same rate,” Slater Tow, a spokesman for Facebook, said in an e- mailed statement. “In the past, our diversity and inclusion efforts were decentralized amongst many employees and, given our stage of growth, we are consolidating our work and people into one team.”
Among Facebook’s efforts is a new search service the company began to roll out last month. The company is also bolstering its mobile offerings, including an upgrade to its application for smartphones based on Google’s Android software.
While Facebook’s staff is growing quickly, it’s still much smaller than some of its rivals. Google, for example, has more than 10 times as many people.
The diversity position will be based at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
“We’ve always focused on recruiting the very best and brightest,” Tow said. “We are big believers that creativity happens with people who have different perspectives and background.”
