Similar to most MBA students graduating in May, I am currently looking for a job. As I network, interview, meet with companies, talk to recruiters, and share stories with my classmates I have noticed how important websites, specifically LinkedIn have become to the job search.
On LinkedIn users post their resumes, connect with long lost co-workers, join Alumni Networks and look for job opportunities. A user can not only see their "friends" otherwise known as "connections," but they also have the ability to see the friends of their friends.
Let's say for example that I am interested in a particular company, General Mills, for example. At the top of the user interface users have the ability to search for people, jobs, networks, etc. I can also enter in company names to discover who on LinkedIn works for General Mills. The search results are ranked according to my connections and groups. In other words, if there is a Notre Dame Alum, who works for General Mills, he or she will come up first.
Through the group opportunities, one can join a group of an association, university, interest group, etc. Once in the group, a member can post messages to all of the members which then sends an email to each member with the particular message. Messages for recent grads looking for opportunities are prevalent, along with messages of older grads looking to relocate from let's say Chicago to San Francisco.
LinkedIn has become a means of networking, and therefore, has become vital to the thousands of graduates, as well as those professionals who are out of a job. It is vital that markerts understand such systems of networking as LinkedIn. The relevant advertising opportunities are deemed as hot ad space for some websites.
Featured on LinkedIn there are ads for theladders.com, a website featuring job opportunities for above 100K per year. Following a recommendation coupled with hundreds of ad impressions seen on LinkedIn, I along with some classmates joined theladders.com in search of our post-graduation job.
In addition to ad space there are ramifications for corporations as well. Human Resource departments currently use LinkedIn as sort of a background check for candidates; however, I would also suggest that opportunities available within a certain company be "announced" to the friends of those employees of the corporation. A sort of LinkedIn referral system has the potential to provide corporations with strong candidates, without the fees and unqualified applications associated with a posting on such a website as monster.com.
Better get back to LinkedIn!
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