The Rise of LinkedIn
LinkedIn was founded in 2002, launched in 2003, but its positioning as one of the major social media networks seems so much more recent.
LinkedIn has been growing dramatically over the past few years. It’s now considered “the de facto tool for professional networking” by many. The users of LinkedIn have started embracing their profiles for what they are — online resumes.
It’s difficult to believe that in 2015, we still have resumes. The world around us is undoubtedly changing. Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, has long championed for the end of e-mail. In 2010, he unsuccessfully introduced Facebook’s own messaging system, which integrated all forms of communications.
Okay, perhaps we aren’t ready for a world without e-mail, but the fact that searching for jobs hasn’t been streamlined in some breakthrough manner is incredibly surprising. The competitive nature of this world has now resulted in everybody “selling” themselves. The online profile you have on LinkedIn is a careful representation of you. If LinkedIn shows us one thing, it’s that we are ready for online resumes; rather than waste time sending off resumes, our profiles can do the work for us. In this regard, LinkedIn probably sees itself as revolutionizing that aspect of the industry and we can only hope so.
LinkedIn is in a unique position of changing the business market with its features. LinkedIn isn’t like Facebook where the majority of its users use their profiles for personal reasons. LinkedIn is strictly business. In some sense, LinkedIn can be an employer’s definitive insight into their candidates.
The only real issue here is that you can’t tailor your LinkedIn profile for each job. The best resumes are the ones that are customized for each job listing, with certain areas highlighted more than others. This isn’t the case with a LinkedIn profile. In some sense, that’s fine, because it’s an extensive overview of your professional background, something that should be appreciated by employers.
The simple fact that hiring managers and employers complain that resumes shouldn’t be longer than a page is another win for LinkedIn. In fact, a one-page resume isn’t even practical. LinkedIn allows for detailed information in a readable format. I can find out how many languages you speak, where your work has been published, as even click on said links and see that work within seconds. In this sense, those evaluating your background aren’t confined to the boring format of a Word document.
Oh, and let’s also not forget that some people make horrendous resumes. LinkedIn, for the most part, offers a very presentable profile for all users.
Citations:
TechRepublic: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/five-benefits-of-linkedin-for-organizations-and-it-pros/
DailyMail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1329979/Facebook-email-Mark-Zuckerberg-launches-Google-Gmail-killer.html
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