Facebook’s value to recruiters as a tool for discovering promising new job candidates will get a boost now that the social networking behemoth has announced the release of its new Graph Search feature.

Graph Search, currently available in a limited beta program for testing, is a search engine running inside of Facebook. It is designed to let ordinary Facebook users find answers to queries such as, “French restaurants in San Francisco my friends have eaten at” or “videos of my friends’ birthday parties.”

Savvy recruiters know that they have to keep up with developments in technology and social media if they want to find the best candidates for the positions they are trying to fill. Sites such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter offer a treasure trove of information about potential candidates. They enable employers and recruiters to follow connections as they search for professionals to fill important positions.

Facebook’s Graph Search should provide value to recruiters because it will enable them to search the social network for candidates who have profiles that align with employer needs, according to Work4Labs CEO Stephane Le Viet’s recent guest post, “Graph Search And Online Recruiting: How Facebook Is Transforming An Industry,” at Forbes magazine.

Le Viet notes, for example, that the Hard Rock Cafe could use Graph Search to help it fill positions in a new Tokyo outlet by targeting Tokyo residents who have said they like rock music.

Facebook’s value to recruiters becomes even more evident when you consider that you can focus on specific keywords and dive deeper into data about the candidates you discover. The recruiter will see details about the candidate’s education, job history and what motivates and interests them, Le Viet says, without necessarily having to even review a resume.

As potential job candidates spend more of their time on sites like Facebook, it makes sense to look for them there. This is where there personas, skills and interests are truly on display. If the open position relies on the candidate being tech savvy, checking up on how they present themselves via online profiles can be very demonstrative to their abilities. For example, you can see how helpful or knowledgeable a candidate is as he offers (admittedly self-serving) advice to people via Twitter or by posting comments on someone’s Facebook page.

It is a sure thing that social networks such as Facebook will change the way that you look for and recruit job candidates. Users are connected to one another in ways they they may not even realize, such as through shared interests or people in common. This may lead a discerning recruiter to discover candidates who are friends with people already working at the company and whose interests and skills line up with the requirements of the position. It is integral that those at the front lines of recruiting keep up with the latest web technologies – in particular the big social media platforms like Facebook.