Dive Brief:
- In a move to create a certain level of privacy for the 450 million members of LinkedIn, a new feature called Open Candidates allows members to discretely indicate to recruiters they are available for career opportunities. TechCrunch explains that this signal can only be seen by recruiters who use LinkedIn's paid premium service, at a cost of about $8,000 per year. The initial launch is expected to occur for users in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.
- LinkedIn is also improving their recruitment products overall, with advanced career information and new ways for recruiters to communicate with their clients. According to TechCrunch, the main bread and butter of LinkedIn is its Talent Solutions, which generated $558 million of its total $861 million in sales in the first quarter of 2016, a 41% year-over-year increase.
- The Open Candidates feature allows users to have some control over whether or not they choose to be contacted for job opportunities, while protecting the privacy of each user.
Dive Insight:
Since its purchase by Microsoft, LinkedIn has been revamping much of its Talent Solutions platform to make it more friendly for candidates and recruiters alike. The latest addition of the Open Candidate feature is a simple yet effective way for recruiters, who are already investing a chunk of money in the tools and resources available on LinkedIn, to source talent.
Tech enhancements in recruitment seek to overcome serious talent shortages in certain areas by extending recruiter reach. Mobile is one such area that still requires more recruiter attention, and it's an area LinkedIn has been expanding to as well.
