LinkedIn

By Mary O’ Sullivan

LinkedIn Overview

LinkedIn is a social networking site for business, founded in 2002 in California. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2006. It holds information on individuals and organisations. Individuals create a profile and provide details including current and previous employment, education, volunteer experience and additional skills and interests. They invite and accept invitations to connect from other members, or ‘Connections’. Members can give and receive endorsements and recommendations to and from connections. They can post information and react to posts from others. Employees of an organisation can establish a profile for their organisation and record information including its sector, website, number of employees and can post job vacancies. An individual can indicate they are available for work and an organisation can indicate it is hiring.

LinkedIn Selected Academic Literature

The effectiveness of LinkedIn in the recruitment process has been the subject of a number of studies, particularly in the Information and Communication Technologies Communication (ICT) sector, one of the fastest growing sectors, which is very focused on finding the best candidates in the shortest possible time.

Aguado et al. (2019) looked at the relationship between the information contained in LinkedIn profiles of ICT professionals and their professional performance in the Big Four, the four largest professional services organisations in the world – Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers. They looked at how four profile factors – breadth of professional experience as described in candidates’ profiles, their breadth of interaction on LinkedIn or social capital, their interest in updating their information and breadth of non-professional information on their profiles – influenced three performance factors – productivity, absenteeism and management potential. They found significant connections in a number of areas including, for example, for younger professionals, positive connections between interaction on LinkedIn with productivity and absenteeism levels but negative connections with perception for management potential. Interest in updating information also had a negative relationship to perception of management potential. For more experienced professionals, they found that breadth of professional experience and of non-professional information were linked to greater absenteeism.

Pinho et al. (2019) looked at the level of use of LinkedIn in the recruitment process, whether it positively impacts the process in terms of speed and quality of the hired candidate and whether having an updated profile positively impacts candidates being contacted by recruiters. They studied the process in a consulting firm and in a software house. They found that LinkedIn is an essential recruitment tool for the firms, but stressed that most companies combine organic recruitment with LinkedIn for recruitment. They also found that 89% of the respondents with an updated LinkedIn account had been contacted by recruiters, proving that LinkedIn can increase the probability of being hired.

LinkedIn Timeline – Product and Usage Highlights

2002	LinkedIn is founded in California.
2004	LinkedIn  has 1 million users.
2005	LinkedIn Business Accounts, which gives businesses access to more powerful search tools, launched
2007	LinkedIn has 10 million users.
2007	‘Who’s been viewing your profile’ feature launched
2008	A mobile version of the site is launched
2008	LinkedIn targeted advertising, allowing advertisers to target specific groups of users based on the information in their profiles is launched.
2008	An applications platform that allows other online services to be embedded within a users profile page, enabling them to share what they are reading or blog postings, is launched.
2011	The “Apply with LinkedIn” button, enabling users to apply for jobs on job listing pages, is introduced.
2012	LinkedIn enables users to endorse each other’s skills.
2012	The “Influencer” program, where selected individuals are enabled to share content directly with LinkedIn users, is launched.
2013	The Sponsored Updates service,  which enables individuals and companies can pay a fee to have LinkedIn sponsor their content and spread it to their user base, is launched.
2015	An analytics tool that gives users better visibility of traffic that their LinkedIn posts receive, is introduced to the publishing platform.
2016	LinkedIn Learning, a series of online accessible training courses, is launched.
2016	Open to Work,a feature that allows users to signal to recruiters in LinkedIn’s premier-tier that they are looking for a job is launched,.

References/Notes

Aguado, D., Andrés, J.C., García Izquierdo, A.L., Rodríguez, J., 2019. LinkedIn” Big Four”: job performance validation in the ICT sector. Journal Of Work And Organizational Psychology-Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones.

Pinho, G., Arantes, J., Marques, T., Branco, F., Au-Yong-Oliveira, M., 2019. The use of LinkedIn for ICT recruitment, in: World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies. Springer, pp. 1665.–17