Job Seeking Edition: Open-To-Work, Skills matching, Referrals & more + Inspiring conversations about the ultimate AirBnB host & building new abilities

Every few weeks, I share new products and experiments that seem to be working — or not!— to give you some ideas for what we’re building, why we’re building it, and how we operate; I’d love your feedback on everything! – Tomer 

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Today’s edition is focused on empowering professionals to find their next career opportunity. With job seeking on LinkedIn reaching a record high, we want to make sure you are equipped with the tools to explore companies and roles that best fit your needs. 

Before we get started, I wanted to follow up on your feedback. Every day, I get many suggestions (and an occasional bug report) from many of you -- thank you! Several weeks ago, I asked you all how we can make LinkedIn better for you:

Thank you for all the responses. My team and I read & discussed each one so we can better improve your experience. A lot of great feedback was shared with the following top themes:

• More insight into LinkedIn's product process: we’re evolving the product fast and you asked for an easily digestible understanding of what’s new & what’s coming.
• Simpler discovery of posts & content: you asked to curate your feed by topics, add a time-based filter, and easily explore & find posts you were interested in.
• Enhanced ability to manage invitations & messages: you asked for more ways to get & provide insights on invitations as well as filter & track messages you care most about.
• Additional employment trust tools for Pages: page admins requested abilities to verify employees listed on their page, manage listed employees, and even differentiate the type of employment (e.g. full-time, contractor).
• Enhanced creation tools: creators asked for richer formats with additional ways to grow and analyze engagement. 

We have a dedicated roadmap across each area above. Some are being ramped to everyone (e.g. focused inbox & staring messages in inbox, creator tools & analytics, suggested posts based on topics) and some are coming to life very soon (e.g. employment verification, chronological feeds, new topical discovery).

We’re listening closely to your suggestions & ideas and it inspires us to find new ways to deliver value to you, so please keep it coming.

And now, on to our product updates. This edition was authored by Rohan Rajiv, our Director of Product, who shares tips & insights into product releases to help enhance your job searching experience on LinkedIn. Please keep your feedback coming & share this newsletter with others who might be searching for their next play. We are rooting for your success!

1 Start your job search journey by turning on Open-To-Work

This update falls into the category of “an oldie but a goodie” and is the place I like to start for a simple reason. At LinkedIn, you can find opportunities in three ways - by hearing directly from Recruiters all over the world who use LinkedIn’s Recruiter tool to search for and find candidates, by applying to jobs, and with help from your LinkedIn network & community. Open-To-Work helps you do all three.

Open-To-Work is one of the most popular features on LinkedIn’s Recruiter tool and Recruiters can even search for the location or title you specify in your Open to work preferences. Turning on Open-To-Work - either privately signaling to recruiters or sharing with the broader community - increases your chances of being messaged by a recruiter by 2x. 

Once you turn on Open-To-Work, we help you set job alerts. With job alerts, you can get notified when a relevant job is posted that meets your search criteria so you can be among the first to apply. When you are a qualified applicant, applying early improves your chances. We also use your preferences to improve our job recommendations.

Finally, you can harness the power of the broader LinkedIn community for help. You can turn on the public Open-To-Work photo frame to share your job search with LinkedIn members so they can reach out and help you in your job-seeking journey. Members who add Open-To-Work are 40% more likely to receive messages from Recruiters.

2 Use “Skills Match” to understand the skills required for a job (and add skills you have with context)

It can be challenging to find relevant job matches and to quickly assess if you're qualified for a job by looking at the job description. With the “skills match” insight now available on nearly every job posting on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to see a list of skills needed for that particular role and how those skills match up with the ones you have on your Profile allowing you to apply with confidence.

When you see a skill you already have, you can add it directly. And, when you do, we recommend you tag skills to relevant experiences, education, or certifications on your profile. This context helps hirers quickly and easily understand where and how you applied those skills. 

We’re working to improve the skills in the insight and provide you with more ways to showcase your skills to hirers in ways that they trust. In the coming months, you’ll be able to tag skills to projects linked on your profile and link to GitHub projects - and hirers will be able to quickly & easily see this context as they review your profile & job application.

Finally, if you’re looking to learn new skills, we’ve got you covered. Check out LinkedIn’s 2023 Most In-Demand Skills list and free LinkedIn Learning courses to help you build them. You can also find Professional Certificates - based on curated learning and assessments in partnership with companies like Zendesk, SS&C Blue Prism, Microsoft, and LambdaTest - to help you grow in your career. 

3 Share your resume with all recruiters

In addition to your profile, your resume can often have additional information about your experiences, skills, education, and accomplishments. Soon, you’ll be able to share this information with all recruiters on LinkedIn to increase your chances of getting noticed. 

Once enabled, when recruiters search for specific skills, experiences, education, or keywords that match your resume, you’ll show up in their search—making it easier for recruiters to find and reach out to you.

4 Get referred easily with “Hiring in your network”

You can increase your chances of getting hired by asking for a referral. However, identifying who can help you in your job search is the hardest step. And what if you don’t have an extensive 1st-degree network? Now on LinkedIn, it’s easier to tap into the power of not only your 1st-degree network but also 2nd-degree to support you on your job search. When you visit the Jobs tab on LinkedIn you can easily see who is hiring in your network - and your network’s network - so you can reach out to learn more about the opportunity or for a referral. 

We’ll also proactively notify you when people in your first or 2nd-degree network are hiring.

Finally, we surface members of the hiring team in job descriptions to make it easy for you to stand out by reaching out directly to hirers and leveraging the power of your network.

5 Signal your interest in a company with “I’m Interested” 

Sometimes, the job you are looking for may not be open yet. Or maybe you’re still not ready to start applying but you’d still like to signal your interest in the company. Launching in the coming weeks, we're adding an “I’m interested” capability which will help you directly signal your interest from the company page for companies who use LinkedIn’s recruiter products. Your profile and information will then be privately shared directly with recruiters at the company to consider you for a role in the future.

Every day I’m amazed by the heart of the LinkedIn community and the incredible sense of purpose, passion, generosity, and humor that is showcased through conversations across the platform. I love seeing all the unique and inspiring posts－and I’m excited to share some of my favorites with you.  

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Sachin H. Jain, CEO of SCAN Group, shares lessons learned from the history of big publicly-traded companies owning healthcare delivery in light of Amazon’s acquisition OneMedical Group . His post sparked great conversation and insight from professionals in the field.

Andrea Campos, NYT Bestselling Illustrator, shares her experience stepping outside her comfort zone on her journey using surface pattern design to re-spark her creative energy.

Raith, Head of Digital at Leverate Media Asia, shares a helpful visual showcasing best practices and specs for creative assets in social media, spanning Instagram to LinkedIn and TikTok.

Aishwarya Mahapatra, programmer at D.E.Shaw, shares resources to help job seekers prepare for technical interviews

Sheel Mohnot, VC at Better Tomorrow Ventures, shares his extremely special AirBnB experience of being hosted by none other than Brian Chesky, AirBnB’s founder and CEO. 

With deep gratitude,

Tomer