linkedin-peeps

 

LinkedIn is a social networking site that is catered to professionals. Members see the website as a great platform to compile their history of work experience, educational background, and other skill sets.  Also, they enjoy being able to network with others in the same career field and join various interest groups.  The main reason why most people join the site is to see what job openings are advertised.  LinkedIn operates better than Monster or Indeed, for example, because everything pertaining to your career is housed on this one platform. If you have a question regarding a job posting, you can contact the recruiter or someone who works for the company via an inbox email. The ability to reach out to the company itself is much easier. On other job sites, you have to submit your resume or application and wait (no telling how long) for someone from their HR department to contact you.

 

Recently though, there have been some complaints about the application process on LinkedIn. Some have complained that the member profiles do not really serve the purpose it is supposed to. Member profiles are digital versions of your resume. If an employer is looking to find out what kind of work you’ve done in the past, they can easily go to your profile and see all of your information compiled and organized. However, for some strange reason, you’d think that the profile would be sufficient. NOT!  Members have realized that when you go to apply for a job via LinkedIn, some companies insist that you still go to their own website to apply. This action doesn’t save the applicant any time. In fact, it doubles the amount of time it takes to apply for one single job.

 

If a person has to recreate or fill out their job history again, for the company’s sake, then what is the point of completing your profile on LinkedIn?  This doesn’t streamline the process. In fact, LinkedIn has had some reduction in page views or unique visitors because of this.  Members are probably going straight to the company’s website and bypassing LinkedIn altogether.

 

Don’t get it wrong…LinkedIn is an excellent way to network with other likeminded individuals.  But, the idea of how the “profile” is supposed to work should be to make an applicants process less strenuous and time consuming.

 

 

What do you think? Is LinkedIn really serving its purpose? Tell us your thoughts…