09.19.06
I have been using linkedin since it started because I know one of the founders relatively well. One of the major benefits I recently discovered is how to recruit using that network. I am able to get 6 - 8 qualified leads for the job I am posting after I blasted out a message within my network 2 days ago. Like a lot of people, I don’t seem to need to post in the linkedin job board to get what I am looking for.
According to one of the Linkedin marketing guys, only 10% of the people inside linkedin network is looking for job, the rest of them are just using the connections for business development, although it is really hard to quantify the latent job market. From revenue perspective, Linkedin seems to have multiple areas: subscription, job advertisement, and click through ads, plus some more which I am probably not aware of. From what I see, I am a little skeptical about the overall model. For Ads revenue, linkedin site tends to be stale. While people are active once they are looking for jobs, most of the people I know seldom logon to linkedin system since the profile information tend to be stay the same and don’t need to be updated frequently. Ads generated sites needs fresh content like news, gossip, etc. to keep users coming back. Even while I am on the site, I am searching for people and really don’t see a benefit to click on google ads since it is irrelevent. So this is probably not the best model for click through ads, although enough visitors will eventually bring decent revenue. In my mind, “In mail” subscription tends to be an overkill unless you are truly a business development manic. Maybe job ads will pick up with more and more people coming onto the site. But again, if I have enough connections (ie. I have 254 connections that divide nicely between VCs and startup heavy weights), I tend to find that’s enough for me to use the free services and actively push out the message myself. Also, for a lot of people, showing your shared connection with the hiring manager may or may not work in your favor since a hiring manager can dig up more dirt from the shared friend circle.
Maybe I am missing something here… ?
