Introduction to LinkedIn.
It is a platform available on the internet which is a mediator between employee and employer. As the age of information and technology began to progress, innovations started to be seen in every sector. In the past, people searched for jobs, and also businesses' searched for people to hire from a local jobcentre or through contacts and vacancies. But with advancement in technology, this changed and in 2002 a social media platform that mainly focused on business growth or human resources namely LinkedIn was launched which is present as one of the most famous platform that focuses on the professional growth of an individual as well as the growth of an entire organization as it provides a platform to hire skilled individuals globally. The CEO of LinkedIn is Ryan Roslansky.
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| LinkedIn logo |
In December 2002, the company was established by Reid Hoffman along with (Allen Blue, Eric Ly, David Eves, Ian Mcnish, Yan Pujante, Chris Saccheri, Jean-Luc Valliant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guiricke, and Stephen Beitzel) who were the founding members of PayPal and Socialnet.com. In 2004 LinkedIn had reached 1 Million users successfully and it started earning profits in 2006 when it recorded around 10 Million users. And after two years, it launched a mobile version of the site. It started expanding and also opened many offices out of the United States.
It opened its
International headquarters in Dublin, Ireland in the year 2010. In October of
the same year, it was successful in being ranked in Number 10 in the Top 100
most valuable list of startups by Silicon Valley Insider. In June 2016
Microsoft announced to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. From December of that
year, it has been a fully owned subsidiary. Microsoft reportedly paid around
$196 per share of the company. To date, LinkedIn remains one of the biggest
social networking platforms that has been created.
HiQ Labs V/s LinkedIn
There was another
startup named hiQ Labs that was accused and sued for scraping the data of
public accounts of LinkedIn and processing it to sell to their clients but in
return hiQ Labs sued LinkedIn returns and even won as there was no provision
that publicly available data cannot be used. And the claim of Microsoft that
hiQ Labs was violating CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) was proved wrong and
this debate is still going on as of now.
Present Scenario and its
effect on the platform.
With the Outbreak of
Coronavirus, every sector of life has been affected and without a doubt, it has
affected LinkedIn. LinkedIn has helped individual people as well as an
organization. LinkedIn's economic graph clearly showed the effects of the
pandemic as there was seen a sharp decline in the hiring rate. It shows that
there's a spike in the demand for health workers or workers in the roles that
are in Frontlines. Losing the permanent source of income many people used the
platform to network with other people and as result, some even got hired.
How does LinkedIn work?
The primary focus of
this platform is to connect the world's professionals to make them more
productive and successful as said by the platform itself. So how does the
platform operate? The answer is simple it allows users to create a profile
where they can put their CV along with their educational background, training
and skills, the organization in need to hire also have a profile and they post
a job where users can apply and the two can talk and come to conclusion. As
said earlier it acts as a mediator between employer and employee.
How to get started?
First of all, one can either download the desktop version of the software or the app version that is available on both Android and IOS. Then,
1)
Create an Account:
A user can after downloading the application on their computer, simply click on the sign-up button enter a preferred username set a password for the account get started creating the account and fill it up with details such as Educational background, training, skills and update their CVs. And be ready for employers.
2)
Network with people:
Networking plays a crucial role in LinkedIn. It helps the user to understand the industry more and also helps them to seek guidance from professionals and do better in the field itself. So there's a feature to follow and connect with other people available on the platform. Also, users can network with friends, families, colleagues and co-workers.
3)
Start working:
So
if all works out, creating a well-built profile, networking with professionals
then the user can land his job and start gaining experience and this helps in
building a portfolio which in future will help the user themselves in
progressing in the respective genre or field.
A user after landing their jobs and getting used to it can share their experience via LinkedIn only, through different means of multimedia. As the feature is provided in LinkedIn itself other people can like, comment, and share and send the post to their connections or friends.
Employer's perspective.
According to LinkedIn,
an employer must use their platform to hire people because of the following reasons:
· LinkedIn
makes it easy for employers to reach the right group of people for the job
posting. And it also helps in filtering the right people for the specified job.
· It
helps to reach the right crowd which indeed saves the tithe me of Employer.
· It
says that it provides a fast way to interview as it helps in screening the
potential employees and also it makes it easy for the employer to connect with
the potential employees as it provides a chat function where the communication
can be verbal(video call supported) or textual.
How to get started as an Employer?
An employer can create a job post and also select the criteria for the respective jobs. Targeting potential employees can be easy and fast in LinkedIn as it has tools and filters to do so. And after the post is online and the request starts coming in an employer can review and reach out t the potential employee via LinkedIn itself or the forms of contact mentioned in the user's profile. There have been many employer's that are satisfied by the features of LinkedIn, as one of them Elena Doudoukalova (VP of People Operations at Insightly) said" Without LinkedIn, our company couldn't grow the amount we had in last 3 years. It's really exciting to me to not have to do legwork anymore."
Usage.
So we may wonder what the usage of LinkedIn is, the platform apart from being a place for an individual's professional growth guides us in many ways. So let's explore the usage of this platform.
1)
Branding:
A
user can use this platform to develop a portfolio, that aids in the user's personal
branding. LinkedIn has evolved from just being a job platform that in its early
days acted as a mediator between an employer and an employee to a vast social
networking platform, that now aids its users in personal branding.
It simply provides the user with the exposure they never get and hence provides their users with satisfying results.
2)
Job platform:
The primary agenda behind the establishment of this platform is ease in job seeking. So this platform can be used by users to seek jobs best suited for their educational background, training and skills they possess. Creating a user account and updating the required information, and this service can be used for job seeking.
3)Advertisement:
The platform offers users an option to post an advertisement taking a certain fee for that purpose. In mid-2008 LinkedIn, DirectAds was launched as a way to facilitate sponsored advertising. On July 23, 2013, it introduced Sponsored Updates Ads service. So individuals and companies can pay a fee to promote their content to the large user group that this social networking platform has. This is a common way for social networking sites to earn revenue.
4)
Analytics tools:
Also, it provides users with analytics tools that can help users to track the traffic their content receives on the platform during the time it is online. This feature was added to the platform on May 7, 2015.
5) Provides rankings:
The
platform publishes rankings such as Top companies, Top voices etc. LinkedIn Top
Companies is a ranking that is provided by this platform including the
companies from the USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India etc.
It is based on the traffic that these companies attract online i.e. the company
that attracts the most interest of job seekers.
And since 2015 the platform started publishing the annual ranking of Top Voices recognizing the users with the most engagement and interactions on their content. So anyone in need of this information can also use LinkedIn as they provide the listings/rankings regularly.
6) Networking platform:
Being a Social networking site, people can use this platform just for networking with the professionals of the industry. And also it can be used to network with friends, families, workmates or colleagues. This helps in the overall growth of an individual user in all aspects not only career development. Also, this acts as a platform to share business-related articles.
Miscellaneous facts regarding LinkedIn.
This section of the article contains miscellaneous facts about the platform that includes interesting facts and figures, controversies and many more.
1) Profile linking(embedded applications):
LinkedIn started giving its users the feature to add links to external online services in October 2008. Which allowed users to link their profile with applications such as Amazon's Reading List, WordPress, Six Apart and TypePad application that allowed the users to display their latest blog postings within their own LinkedIn profile. Shortly after in November 2010, some of the external services were no longer supported including Amazon's Reading List.
2) Mobile App:
The platform launched its mobile application in February 2008, which was launched in many different languages such as Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Currently, the app has over 500M+ downloads with over 2M reviews in Google Playstore. And also many downloads and a good ranking in the Apple Store. The app has 4.4/5 ratings in Google Playstore whereas it has 4.3/5 ratings in the Apple Store.
3) Awards and Recognition:
LinkedIn
in the course o0 years has gained many awards and recognition. And this has
grown out to be a successful business. Following are some Awards and
Recognition obtained by the platform in this course of time.
· According
to the platform Comparably, LinkedIn has won 4 awards in 2021 and 7 awards in
2020.
- In
2021 the platform won Best CEO 2021, Best Company Culture 2021, Best Company
Perks & Benefits and Best Leadership Teams 2021.
- In
2020 it was able to bag awards such as Best Company for Diversity 2020, Best
Company Perks & Benefits, Best Company Compensation, Best Company
Happiness, Best Professional Development 2020, Best Leadership Teams 2020, and
Best CEOs for Women 2020.
(These
awards were given to the company by comparably which gives rewards to various
companies based on their employees' ratings in different factors of the
company, which is held annually)
· The
app has been able to bag a great rating even from the users in the respective
platform that it has been published. Be it Android's Google Playstore or Apple's
Apple store even the mobile version are bagging a commendable amount of
recognition and well reviews/ratings from the users.
· It
was also voted #1 Most Trusted Network by BUSINESS INSIDER INTELLIGENCE.
(Fun fact: LinkedIn in itself also
provide its user base with awards based on different categories.)
Not only this the
platform have received many awards and recognition since its establishment in
December 2002.
4) Controversies and criticism:
In
20 years of establishment, along with success and praise, the platform also has
received much criticism and have been part of many controversies.
· LinkedIn
has always been criticized for its auto-update feature and also email spamming
feature, which if the user forgets to switch off sends emails to congratulate
the user to the user's contacts asking to congratulate the user for a new job.
· Also,
it was criticized for sending personal invites to the users personal and, if
not answered would send another email stating "You have not yet answered
XY's invitation." The platform was sued twice for this notion, In 2015 the
lawsuit was settled in LinkedIn's favour.
· In
June 2012, the platform's approximately 6.4 million users passwords were stolen
and published online. This was referred to as the 2012 LinkedIn Hack. LinkedIn
was criticized for this and for not using good security measures.
· In
2014 Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) discovered that Threat
Group-2889, an Iran-based group, created 25fake LinkedIn accounts. They were
used for spearphishing and malicious websites against their victims.
· At
the end of 2013, it was announced that the platform intercepted users' emails
and quietly moved them to its servers for full access. this was called the
man-in-the-middle attack.
· Also,
it was said to have violated many privacy policies and acts. And In November
2016, Russia banned the platform as it stored Russian data on servers out of
the Russian border as the relevant law considered it illegal and the was in
effect since 2014.
· And
also many other countries have restricted the use of this social networking
site.
· Also, the site's been accused of many surveillance acts that included the surveillance run by the organization GCHQ (An intelligence organization run by the British government) according to the documents published by Edward Snowden.
Advantages
of using LinkedIn.
There are many advantages
of using the platform and some of them are listed below.
-
Cost-effective:
So the platform that assists the user with their professional growth does it all free of cost. Yes, it is completely free of cost to make a user profile but it does take time to maintain one.
-
Recognition/branding:
It
helps a user to create branding, and also the chance of being hired by
recruiters. And anyone looking at the profile can know a lot of your
professional capabilities through it only.
-
New culture/trend:
More
and more companies have standardized online hiring of employees and having a
LinkedIn profile helps in the hiring process. And a well-maintained user
profile will be a game-changer in this process.
-
Easy and efficient networking:
It's a modern and easy way to maintain the connections of a user-related to his/her professional life. For example, we can connect to that person we met at a certain seminar and we can directly message them and build connections that may help us in our career-life at some point of our career.
- Helps in research:
So
being a user of the platform one can research about his or her dream company,
the culture, the work environment and also network with the employees that are
already working there. So it helps in gathering information that may help a
user in his/her career.
Disadvantages.
Every platform or
things that exist have both positive and negative impacts or we can say have
both advantages and disadvantages. Following are some disadvantages of using
the platform.
-
Security:
So
entrusting our personal information to the platform can lead to a mishap during
a data breach or a hack. Although the possibility is low, there's always the
chance of identity theft.
-
Spam messages:
Any
user that has created a user account on the platform knows about this. There
are tons of spam messages being sent to the user. There are a lot of messages
and sometimes users delete the authentic one thinking of it as spam which is
using LinkedIn's disadvantage.
-
A commitment of time:
Although the platform is cost-effective, building a good and sellable profile takes a lot of time and also success is not also 100% guaranteed. In starting a user must be committed to building up connections and profile and give a lot of time to his profile. Although this topic is controversial on whether it is a disadvantage or not here it's mentioned on the topic.
-
Promotions and sales:
So
we meet a lot of people on the platform in course of time during building a
network. There are some genuine people out there that help you during your
journey but also there are some sales representatives of certain services whose
aim is to only sell products and services rather than helping or guiding you in
your professional life. So the users must always be cautious.
- High-cost advertising:
So the cost of advertising can be pretty high for a company. So choosing this platform that says it advertises among "High-value audience", for only advertising is not a wise option.
- Possibility of scams:
So
the person you respond to and the content you respond to thinking of what they
post or promise is true may always be not true.; The person you connect to may
not always have the expertise you think he/she has or their claim may not be
always true. So users can be scammed and there are many instances of that
happening too.
Conclusion.
In a nutshell, the
platform has some negative aspects but the things it provides the users with
surely win over the negative aspects it has. Anyone in need of a job and anyone
seeking career development surely should make an account on the platform and give
it a go. Although setting up an account can be timely and also sometimes boring
the time you invest is surely worth the time as this can help you in future.
With consistency and a little bit of luck, the platform can surely change
someone's life.
Although the job is not
promised or guaranteed the time spent networking with people surely helps in
life. If your focus is career development LinkedIn, surely helps a lot but if
the focus is only on networking and just being social other social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can help. This platform
surely brought a change in the way we look for jobs and professional
development and Reid Hoffman did great creating the platform.
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