We rarely have much good to say about LinkedIn. The ‘business social network’ is less professional than a fart in a boardroom and has become a spam haven for self promoters and recruitment consultants.
The recruitment world as a whole is not one we look fondly on, mainly down to the utter incompetence of the majority of agencies who contact us on a regular basis despite our very obvious “do not contact us if you are an agency” plea. Anyhow, that’s a whole other topic for discussion that we won’t bore you with now.
Despite falling out of love with LinkedIn of late, it does seem to be looking for intuitive ways to improve its services which is good to see.
The company’s most recent initiative is the launch of the ‘Apply With LinkedIn’ tool, which will essentially allow job seekers to apply for job listings with the click of a mouse.
LinkedIn representative Jonathan Seitel blogged, “Our goal with Apply with LinkedIn is to help every professional put their best foot forward, anywhere across the web, when they take that leap to apply for a new position, a dream job.”
As well as being available for job pages within LinkedIn, the button will also function like a ‘tweet’ or ‘like’ button in the sense it can be embedded on any page of a site and offers the site owner degree of customisation in regards to look and feel.
When Job seekers click on the button they will be able to access and edit their personal LinkedIn profiles in real time making it easy to make job-specific tweaks without leaving the page. At this point in the process users will also be prompted to reach out for recommendations from connections and fellow employees.
The major appeal of this new tool is the fact it simplifies the recruitment process for both parties by eliminating the need for CVs and covering letters. By ‘applying with LinkedIn’, Job seekers are submitting their LinkedIn profile rather than documents.
Over time LinkedIn has become more job site than social network so it makes perfect sense for the company to do all it can to add value in this area. Any digital progression in the recruitment process gets a thumbs up from us, especially if it keeps the recruitment consultants at bay.
