A new San Francisco startup gives young job seekers an employment score (like a credit score) and makes money by serving up relevant candidates to employers.

The company, Identified, provides a service that ranks users’ online professional identity while building a database that can be mined by employers.

Founded in September 2011, Identified joins a number of data mining companies that score a person’s professional reputation on social media (Klout, Kred or PeerIndex).

Identified’s particular niche scores an individual’s professional identity according to information on the person’s Facebook page. When a person signs up with Identified, it provides a Facebook score from 0-100 based on education, work history and “who your friends are.” According to the San Francisco Business Times, Identified has a business model that charges large employers such as McKinsey, Google, and Disney for providing relevant candidates and then tracking the hiring behavior of these companies.

Identified targets younger workers; those under 35 who often do not have a LinkedIn page or other professional identity. The strategy is to make these workers more “visible” to the larger employers that are seeking new hires.

According to Identified, improving your score works a little bit like a game in that one competes with one’s friends for the highest score.

Identified is also developing tools so users can add information and help improve their score over time. Identified is also building a product that will help companies search for potential job candidates through its database.

Significance

Social media and digital records are quietly changing the face of the employment landscape, yet younger workers have the highest unemployment rate in the country. This new enterprise will help raise the profile of young workers.

On the other side of the coin, many young people seem to forget that what they post on Facebook or in other digital media is available for public consumption. Many employers search public social media records as one data point for determining the quality of potential new hires. While most young people look at Facebook as a way to communicate with their friends, the way social media is now being used by companies such as Identified should be an eye opener. In short, what you post on your social media sites, and who your friends are, can either help or hinder your career prospects.