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I got a call today from my new sales rep at Linked-In. Smart lady. Energetic. Young, I bet....
As a marketing headhunter, I pay Linked-In a fair amount of money each year as a Pro Plus member -- which means I'm contracted for 150 In-Mails per month. Sadly, I use a fraction of that amount, and if I want to change to a more appropriate program, I will lose the hundreds of unused In-Mails that I have accrued this year. It's like the deal with cellphone roll-over minutes, except that In-Mails aren't cheap, and to lose that much inventory is going to suck.
Anyway, I'm not here to rant about Linked-In's policy. They are a good company run by likable people and I'm sure their pricing will evolve with the needs of the market. I just happen to be one of the recruiters who was an early adopter, and my eyes were bigger than my stomach when I did my deal with them last year.
What this post is about is the future of Linked-In. These guys are getting to be the Monster.com of passive candidates. There was a great story on them in a recent Business 2.0 which claimed that Linked-In has 8 million members. Today my sales rep said that the community is up to 9 million -- an increase of 12.5% in the last 90 days. Annualized, that's a 50% growth rate. At that rate, Linked-In's domestic + international network would break 100 million people in a little more than five years. Man.
Usually a company can't grow at that rate forever. But Linked-In's growth rate might defy traditional growth rates because, like Google, they are solving their market's problems in new and unconventional ways. In other words, you can't imagine what Linked-In's growth rate will be because you can't imagine what they'll evolve into -- and which recruiting platforms they will radically redefine while they do it.
Now, I'm not saying that recruiters are toast. Far from it. But I am saying that anyone who's involved with my industry should be watching Linked-In very carefully.
Consider Madison Avenue
Google has wrought total hell on traditional interruption advertising models, and the world's most established ad agencies are having to reinvent themselves. Nobody tells this story better than Seth. PR has been hit hard, too.
Lately the internet is buzzing about Google's stock possibly hitting $600 as Google not only disintermediates everyone in the path between buyers and sellers -- but continually reinvents itself in the process. Its management philosophy rewards innovation, agility, and intellect. Sacred cows become hamburger.
It's impossible to predict what Google will look like 10 years from now. You only know it'll be important. It's like Google defines the weather conditions for the recruiting industry, making it impossible to plan for the future.
And now there's Linked-In. Several months ago I heard a podcast of Sequoia Capital's Mark Kvamme (pronounced "kwa-me") giving a keynote at Ad:Tech/San Fransisco. This guy was so smart I had to hear the podcast four times just to soak it all up. It was a mind bender, kids.
Mr. Kvamme is on Linked-In's board, along with David Sze of Greylock Partners. Sequoia got a piece of the action on Google and YouTube, and Mr. Kvamme knows how important top-flight software developers are to a Web 2.0 company. Basically, if you can imagine it, you can fund it and develop it. I'm oversimplifying, but the rest involves getting customers to refine it and buzz about it.
So... What happens if Sequoia crosses Linked-In with YouTube, giving passive candidates the chance to post two-minute videos of themselves? Or what happens if Linked-In joins forces with Google, enabling a mash-up of Adwords' reach and targeting with Linked-In's growing network of active job seekers?
"Passively-Active" Candidates
Could candidates simply enter keywords into their Linked-In bios and then enter a spending limit into an Adwords account so that Google could proactively display their bios for targeted searches? For example, a passively-active Linked-In member might enter the names of specific recruiters or hiring managers into a Linked-In "Interests"-type field and every time that hiring manager Google's himself, he'll see Adwords for the candidates who are trying to get in touch with him.
Or perhaps those same Adwords might get served into the hiring manager's personal Gmail account, which now has ~12% of the email market. BTW, Gmail's tagline is "Search, don't sort" -- which should tell you something about where we're headed.
And don't forget that Gmail offers calendering functionality. Is it possible that Gmail and Linked-In could datamine joint users' accounts to advise users when they will be in the same geographic location? (ie, "You are scheduled to attend the National Auto Show in Orlando. Fellow Linked-In members Joe Jones, Mary Brown, and Phil DeGraves will also be there. Click here to see if they would like to meet you for coffee ...") What happens if Linked-In and Expedia form a "social travel site" (like AirTroductions.com or TripMates.com), allowing Linked-In members to meet one another on shared flights -- or in airport clubs like Delta's Crown Room? Dude!
And whither document matching technologies in all of this? Could an HR manager simply feed a job posting into Google Base and wait for it to spit out a list of Linked-In members who match the spec on 100 different job attributes? And is there a pay-per-call play in here somewhere, where candidates and companies can narrowcast voice mails to each other? And at what point will Linked-In knockoff H3's business model?
I have no idea.
What all this means for me is that in 2007, I am going to work very hard to disintermediate myself -- not because I hate my job, but because I want to see if it can be done, and how I can make money at it. Jack Welch mandated a similar initiative at GE called DestroyYourBusiness.com.
I'm going to be stress-testing my garage recruiting firm to the limit. It's not that I'm scared of Linked-In. I just don't know what else to do besides experiment. Thank God there are no committees of people forcing me to justify I every idea with a business case.
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Comments
Does LinkedIn count as an intermediary, or do you view it as simply a channel through which to establish contacts directly?
Posted by: Cam Beck | 12.15.06
Seems like LinkedIn would be more appealing if it added more networking/communication tools for users to get to know each other. Technically 'Paul' is in my network and I have no idea. Because he's a friend of David's, who's a friend of Chris, who's an associate of Paul's. Maybe it would make sense for LinkedIn to offer its own blogging network?
I just think giving users a way to become more familiar, and also more comfortable, with each other would facilitate much more interaction, which obviously helps the site.
Posted by: Mack Collier | 12.15.06
Cam: "Does LinkedIn count as an intermediary, or do you view it as simply a channel through which to establish contacts directly?"
Harry: All recruiters view it as a direct communication channel. In-Mails allow anyone to contact anyone (who has opted-in) directly -- without having to go through a chain of intermediaries.
This is very handy for executive searches, because if I want to solicit Candidate X, I don't necessarily want all of our mutual friends to know about it. It needs to be more discreet than that.
The only problem I see developing with Linked-In as what direct marketers call "list fatigue." List fatigue is simply an overmailed list.
Linked-In members who have killer resumes get hit-on constantly. Then they get burned out and opt-out of the list. At that point, my weapon of choice becomes the telephone: I gotta call Candidate X and leave him a voice mail. When I do, I leave my URL for him, he checks out my blog, and if he thinks I'm credible, he returns my call.
Which leads to Mack's point: Blogs are an awesome way to dimensionalize and credible-ize people. Maybe Linked-In will offer that, especially since they already offer links to one's website, blog, or what-have-you.
Posted by: Harry Joiner | 12.15.06
LinkedIn is a terrific resource -- I've received legal assistance in Japan and retail agency recommendations in Brazil from my network, usually within a few days.
It's also getting a bit too big, in my opinion -- I've had too many instances where I've tried to connect with someone only to find out that our intermediary doesn't 'actually' know the person at all. LinkedIn has, in many cases, become a surrogate popularity contest. More connections means better, which isn't the case.
The future of LinkedIn? A connection with YouTube? Good idea. Quick vlogs supporting your bio, maybe a video of a panel presentation you gave, etc. How about a connection with Marketing Profs -- premium content aimed at people who care -- and a deeper sense of community? CMO Council? Marketing NPV?
More dialog and more value to those of us who really use LinkedIn is where the company needs to go. And I hope it does!
Posted by: Stephen Denny | 12.17.06
I agree with Mack about Linkedin's lack of good networking tools. I use it and like it, but I am on Marketingprofs every day because I can interact on an intellectual level with fellow marketers. And I don't even have to buy them a drink (:-)
That being said Linkedin is a great tool for making connections and I hope they will continue to look forward to making the service even better. Perhaps Marketingprofs and Linkedin could partner on providing a forum like Marketingprofs but where people from all different aspects of business can interact.
I sent this suggestion to Linkedin but never received a reply. I guess, in this case I had the wrong connection. I should have put it on the Marketingprofs site.
Posted by: Harry Hallman | 12.19.06
I think LinkedIn will become a "Monster" if Google helps to impose its searching capability and find synergy from the many products in its kittybag (like Google Earth, YouTube, etc). Just like the MySpace-Cingular deal..its about finding more value with existing technologies. Think Monster should strike a deal with Google as it already has an excellent lead. LinkedIn is just the second best thing for Google..but the best thing that ever happened to LinkedIn :-))
The mantra is "Get bought by Google"
Posted by: Mahesh | 12.21.06
I agree with most of what is said here about LinkedIn not having enough networking tools. I am 21 years old and my career is just starting and I am finding LinkedIn to be incredibly useless to me, as most of the candidates on it do not care enough to an amateur in the field. I keep trying to search out other networking sites but can't seem to find any that are fitting enough. For now, I've found Myspace to be the best tool for it.
Posted by: Denise | 12.21.06
I'd like to see LinkedIn get a more advanced search interface. Because of their focus on making professional contacts, I want to be able to narrow my focus as much as possible.
I was browsing through their search area for 'classmates' but couldn't narrow down the results beyond graduation year.
I'd be much more interested in being able to focus the results on people who graduated from the same department as me, or have careers in my same industry.
There are probably many more examples of ways to slice the LinkedIn search pie, this is just one example of where they'll need to improve as they continue to expand.
Posted by: John Johansen | 12.21.06
I would like Linked-In to offer some of the features used in ecademy http://www.ecademy.co.uk.
Blogs, clubs and loads of pictures make it much easier to locate and relate. It isn't as good as Linked-In in terms of users though. Anybody can join and it shows.
Posted by: Gareth Edwards | 12.21.06
All these great comments make me realize that we are only in the second inning of social networking.
There are plenty of loyal Linked-In users who are more than willing to help the company figure out what creates real value for its members.
Again, there are some great ideas in this string. Linked-In should start a usergoup or a wiki of some sort.
I wonder if Linked-In is lurking here ...
Posted by: Harry Joiner | 12.21.06