History and Growth of LinkedIn
Question:
Discuss about the Workplace Learning on Online Communities.
In this report, discussions will be made on how the LinkdIn profile started and about its present growth and projected growth. The different key drivers will also be described who are solely responsible for the success of the popularity of the LinkedIn. The key drivers for the success of the LinkedIn and its popularity will also be discussed. There are many people who have stopped using their LinkedIn accounts primarily due to many reasons that will be eventually discussed in this report. The reasons behind why the people along with some of the businessman have stopped using their LinkedIn profile will be elaborated. Its advantage on our current career stage will be stated along with the mistakes that the people commonly make while developing their profile and also providing some good advice to make the best leverage of the LinkedIn account.
The LinkedIn was founded in December 14th 2002 and was launched in May 5, 2003 in California, US by Reif Hoffman. Reif Hoffman was an ex employee of the SocialNet and PayPal. He took an initiative to work on this project and so invited some of his close colleagues from different companies to work with him. Lee Hower, Erick Lee, David Eves, Stephen Beitzel and Allen Blue are some of the co founders of the LinkedIn. This social site is usually used for professional networking. This is designed specifically to the community of the business.
LinkedIn is highly superior than many of the social sites and it is proven. In case of the networking sites the profiles are considered to be consistent and accurate. The LinkedIn is preferred to be the term that has the “ Professional network” that can be used without the term of the Social Network.
- It has a capability for the posting of the job. There is a need to make the job easy by distributing the job openings and then post it as well.
- The LinkedIn profile is much safe than any other sites. There is actually nothing to hide in this site like the other sites. In this case, it is so because only the things that the people are interested in is showed and none can tag us for the bad pictures and also for the writings on the wall.
- The application is very easy and can be applied easily that helps the employees to apply for their choice of the jobs without forewarding their resume. The popularity of this site is based on this LinkedIn profile as there are none of the sites like this.
- This could easily be used by the professional people who are interested to look into new employment positions and also to those people who can make the business profile seen by everyone.
This LinkedIn site is rapidly growing and is becoming global day by day. Initially the growth off the LinkedIn was very slow, then in 2010, the growth shifted into a hyper growth by almost 90 million by the end of that year. The company then turns to its 10th anniversary in 203 and hits the members by 225 million and that two in each second is availing this process. Canada, UK, US, India are some of the country that are expected an average hike by 27.99% in the next five years.
The people usually make the right connections. The people who are serious will apply here and this engaging networking site can be used to interact and connect to different professional people. The qualifications can easily be described along with its key achievements skills and the examples of the project that helped the different recruiters to read their profile. Those who are interested in posting good content can do it in their profile and make the other people respond to it as well.
Advantages of Using LinkedIn
The format is very standard and familiar and the employers can easily reject the undesired candidates who they feel lacks required educational qualification etc. The only site is the LinkedIn that has the clear resume format and that contains the various essential skill keywords like customer service, teamwork flexibility and many more
This helps in the growth of the network, that I regarded as one o the major advantage to know more people who will help them as well as us. There sre many professionals who are like us and can in our career paths and guiding us with advice.
There are often unwanted spams and updates with full of bugs. Many unwanted messages are delivered in the in box section and people can easily make a spam of it. The news feed is also full of spam messages and updates that are pointless.
Unwanted connection requests is something that is very common inspite of the fact one unwilling to connect to them the request come over and over again. This is the reason many opt of it and never would like to prefer not to use it ever.
There are many complaints from the customers but the help that I provided is often not fast and sometimes negligible. These when resolved will help them to use this site often.
There is a suggestion to improve the user interface so that is not anymore difficult for the users to use it.
Some often forget to add the profile pictures and the professional identity is exposed to others. Often when there is no picture, the recruiters will try to skip those profiles, the addition o the picture will be helpful in some sort of identification. There is a need for a good profile picture (Van Dijck, 2013).
The addition of the random connections and making friends with them is a very common deed that is done by users. The connections should be used in a professional way and not to make a huge gang of friends and there is a need for the LinkedIn officials to take a steep against it.
The right key words is very essential and is highly noted by the recruiters so the use of the right key words is very essential for the users. The key words should appear in the specific job positions that will eventually enhance the profile of the users.
Many people lie on the profile by adding past experiences which are not true and acquiring a degree that is absolutely fake is often applied by the users. They do not understand the recruiters will sooner or later get to know about their fake identity and certificates (Chiang & Suen, 2015).
Disadvantages of Using LinkedIn
In the concept of the invitation, there is a need to make the connections without making the default invitation. The invitation is only sen so that a strong relationship can be built and an invitee in a positive manner will eventually make the people take it in a positive way as the people will remember whom to customize and not in the case of the invitation.
Some specific need is there so that the people can build a good relationship that might better pay an attention to their updates and posts that can be put in the section of the comments of the ideas that has a conversation (Kim, 2015).
A focus should be made on cultivating a good connection in the network and is considered to be really important. Though professionalism a lot of connections can be made and that will help in leveraging the account so that more connections can be gained and the accounts of the users will also rise (Edwards, 2016).
There is a need to post 3-4 posts that are quite relevant to how one spends his day and in the columns of the interests. Tagging a name with a professional person will help them make a good connection in their relationship. The expertise level in the network will help in the image building for the different posts in a good content (Russell, 2013).
There is a need to thank the people and this is really very important in endorsing the skills and provide them with good recommendations.
Conclusion
It can be concluded, that a brief idea about the history and the reasons for the popularity of the LinkedIn site has been elaborately discussed that has a current and projected growth. The three advantages that includes making the right connections, standard format and familiar chances for making the growth in the network is very useful.
References
Russell, M. A. (2013). Mining the Social Web: Data Mining Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, GitHub, and More. ” O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.
Edwards, T. (2016). The Recruiters LinkedIn Lead Rush: The Quick and Dirty Secrets for any Serious Recruitment and Search Business Owner who wants to attract a Rush of Clients and Candidates with LinkedIn.
Kim, L. (2015). Lessons inspired by Game of Thrones for building connections on LinkedIn.
Chiang, J. K. H., & Suen, H. Y. (2015). Self-presentation and hiring recommendations in online communities: Lessons from LinkedIn. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, 516-524.
Van Dijck, J. (2013). ‘You have one identity’: performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, Culture & Society, 35(2), 199-215.
Utz, S. (2016). Is LinkedIn making you more successful? The informational benefits derived from public social media. new media & society, 18(11), 2685-2702.