According to an article in the New York Times, LinkedIn has nearly doubled its revenue and seen over a 50% increase in both its membership and page views since going public in May. As the company heads forward, it plans to focus on its team, technology, and products in hopes of realizing LinkedIn’s full potential.
Some seem skeptical whether the company can continue to yield such growth and revenue. Currently, the company makes its money from advertisements and premium subscriptions as well as the selling of recruiting services to corporations, plus its been argued that Monster and CareerBuilder are creating competition for LinkedIn. What do you think?
First of all, I think there is huge potential for LinkedIn. As long as the company harnesses its momentum and innovates, it will stay afloat, if not thrive. However, I think the key to this is going to be innovation. LinkedIn needs to create technology that supports and fosters "real world" professional networking even beyond what it’s already doing. Also, the company needs to remain proactive within the field. I can see them branching out and providing services beyond the job and networking environment, tapping into and facilitating professional development series and creating an international dialogue for certain industries.
As far as the competition, I can’t help but think of the MySpace/Facebook battle on this one, although on a smaller scale. My husband got his first job out of college, six years ago, through Monster and I don’t think he would use its services again – not because the company slacked on it’s job, but because LinkedIn is providing a more organic and personal approach to job searching and career building than any of the other services, which proves to yield more success in finding a satisfying job.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
1 comment:
I don't think Monsters and CareerBuilder can compete with LinkedIn because it seems like more and more recruiters are turning to social media to find candidates.
As far as competitors, the big two (Facebook and Google+) will be the two companies to watch for. Facebook, a recently article talked about how recruiters are posting jobs on their Facebook's business page. Although Facebook doesn't really focus much on providing tools for recruiters, I think this is something they do have on their roadmap for the next few years, especially seeing the success of LinkedIn going public.
I think Google+ will play a huge role in this market. The circles and hang out features they have can easily be use by recruiters. You can categorize your potential candidates, follow them and create a hang out for a screening interview. Google docs for your resume... all of the tools are there and all Google has to do is integrate it.
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