LinkedIn rolled out new features last week to help members find work via its community.
Vice president of product Kiran Prasad introduced the updates in a blog post, starting with the Open to Work feature, which enables members to let other members know they are looking for employment.
LinkedIn users can go to their profile and click, “Show recruiters you’re open to work,” under their profile pictures.
After filling in job preferences, such as location and job type, they can click “choose who sees that you’re open” to specify whether the information is visible only to recruiters or publicly.
Once the feature is activated, creating a post with the #opentowork hashtag will enables members to reach even more people on the professional network.
Switching gears from those who need help to those looking to provide it, starting a new post with LinkedIn’s new “Offer to Help” option enables members to specify ways they can help other members in their job hunts, including general help, career coaching, referrals and résumé reviews.
They can then add the #OfferingHelp hashtag and choose who can see their posts, with LinkedIn suggesting that they share these posts beyond their connections.
Finally, LinkedIn added a new reaction, support, enabling members to show their support for articles, posts, news or views.
Prasad wrote, “Coming together as a community is one of the most important things that we can do to get us closer to reaching our goals. We’re continuing to roll out new tools that allow our members to give and get help on LinkedIn, because we’re all better when we’re in it together.”
