Do LinkedIn, (The Recruiters favourite), have the best interest of recruiters at heart?

Written by: Dave Barber, managing director of Dave Barber recruitment

LinkedIn is one of the largest and most populated media platforms in the world and its turnover is around $25 Billion per annum. Recruiters have realised over the last few years that the platform LinkedIn offer is highly successful method for both finding, headhunting and advertising for candidates. Over and above this, it can be a very powerful marketing tool for our profession, especially when used in conjunction with other platforms such as Twitter and Face Book.

So, why do I ask the question? I have noticed over the past few months some subtle but effective changes that LinkedIn have made to their system, for example. The popular,

‘Who’s viewed your profile…’

…option has changed to a bigger picture which is great, but it has also removed the ability to find out which keywords someone has found you through. This is, to some recruiters I know and have spoken too about this, a major concern as this is how they get visits to their profile in turn increasing their business opportunities.

Basic accounts on LinkedIn suffice to some extent but when you see the benefits of a ‘paid’ option such as Talent Finder as an example, you can see that there are tangible benefits like ‘In-Mails’ which can be utilised for direct approaches which in most cases do pay off.

There have been several other changes which are making the recruiters role that bit more ‘difficult’ or more time consuming. So what is actually happening?

Have LinkedIn realised that the huge income potential that recruiters currently enjoy using their platform and, are they considering taking advantage of this revenue stream by ‘shutting out’ recruiters? I could be totally wrong and to a certain extent I hope I am, but, if not, have LinkedIn developed, or are developing, a system whereby they can take a piece of the revenue that recruiters generate?

TAKE NOTE: Why would LinkedIn hire a substantial number of developers this year? Are they actually working on a new revenue stream, could it be the recruiter’s money they are targeting??? If they are, as recruiters we need to be actively looking at new options, ones that could, if they did make it nigh on impossible for us to continue using LinkedIn as a tool for revenue growth, find an alternative option, one which we can use daily and hopefully with more ease and better results.

Get your thinking caps on ladies and gentlemen, we may have to find something in the next couple of years me thinks…….