LinkedIn’s new “Let’s Step Forward” spot takes on the stigmas surrounding unemployment, and the professional network rolled out some new features and updates Thursday to further help those who are out of work.
Global head of product Tomer Cohen said in a blog post Thursday, “The economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic has left more than 140 million people out of work and another 1.6 billion at risk of income loss—with low-income workers, women and underrepresented communities the hardest hit. LinkedIn is in a unique position to help. With 14 million-plus open jobs and a professional community of more than 722 million people worldwide, we have the tools and resources to help many of those derailed by the pandemic reclaim their careers. We’re seeing people come to LinkedIn in record numbers to search for jobs—nearly 40 million each week—and despite a challenging job market, three people are getting hired on LinkedIn every minute.”
LinkedIn rolled out the beta version of its new Career Explorer tool in English Thursday, with more locations and updates to come.
Career Explorer maps the skills members list on their profiles to job titles that they may not have otherwise considered pursuing, also highlighting additional skills that might be helpful and LinkedIn Learning courses that can help on that front.
Cohen offered the following example: “A food server in the U.S. has a 71% skills similarity to customer-service specialist, one of the in-demand jobs we identified with Microsoft as part of our broader reskilling commitment, making it a possible career transition based on skills.”
He added that LinkedIn data shows that 26 million members worldwide are just two skills away from qualifying as customer service specialists, one of the most in-demand jobs on its platform.
LinkedIn data also indicated that nearly 150 million additional technology-related jobs could be created in the next five years, so the platform identified the top trending skills among professionals and added more skill assessments to enable members to showcase their related skills.
Cohen said candidates who complete skill assessments and display the badge on their profiles are up to 20% more likely to get hired.
Since debuting its Open to Work profile photo frame in July, over 3 million members used the feature, receiving an average of 40% more InMails from recruiters and becoming 20% more likely to receive messages from the broader LinkedIn community.
So, the professional network took it one step further, introducing a Hiring profile photo frame that enables members to add jobs directly to their profiles and let job seekers see that they are hiring.
Cohen said the ability to post jobs free-of-charge will be available to all members globally in the coming months.
Finally, LinkedIn is extending its interview preparation tools, including most commonly asked questions, to in-demand jobs including project manager and software engineer.
Cohen concluded, “We know the challenges facing job seekers today can feel overwhelming and daunting, and we are here to provide the tools, resources and community to help anyone who is unemployed get back on their feet. We are committed to creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.”
