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Businesses Social Networks

LinkedIn Hits 1 Billion Users, Adds AI Features for Job Seekers (reuters.com) 28

LinkedIn, the business-focused social network owned by Microsoft, on Wednesday said it now has more than 1 billion members and is adding more AI features for paying users. From a report: Crossing the billion-users mark puts LinkedIn -- where members maintain a resume-like profile of their education, work experience and professional skills -- in the top-tier of social media networks that include rivals such as Meta Platforms. About 80% of recent members are signing up from outside of the United States, the company has said.

LinkedIn has a free tier of membership but also offers subscriptions. Members of its $39.99-a-month tier will get new AI features that can tell a user, who may be plowing through dozens of job postings, whether they're a good candidate based on the information in their profile. The system can also recommend profile changes to make the user more competitive for a job.

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LinkedIn Hits 1 Billion Users, Adds AI Features for Job Seekers

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    LinkedIn has a habit of trawling public forums for names and email addresses, creating new accounts for them and then sending invitation emails to "finish creating your profile!"
    • I was gonna say, between the known spam-bots and the trawled user accounts? Are even half of those actually real? I have my doubts.

    • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      LinkedIn has a habit of trawling public forums for names and email addresses, creating new accounts for them and then sending invitation emails to "finish creating your profile!"

      At some point, I blocked the specific email I used to register with them back in ~2000 and guess what? They must have scanned emails of outlook users I have as customers because they then tried to contact me through my ticket system, opening a new ticket each time.

      I decided to re-activate the primary email I registered with them in the first place to avoid that.

      I didn't know MS bought linked-in or didn't remember but it explains everything I guess.

      I didn't change my profile since ~2005 and I still get posts

  • by VampireByte ( 447578 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @09:47AM (#63971708) Homepage

    It's become more like facebook than something meant for careers. Increasingly the inbox messages are dating service spam and the user posts are political trash or family pics.

  • by Press2ToContinue ( 2424598 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @09:58AM (#63971740)
    "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
  • You mean "Users". (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @10:15AM (#63971772)

    Definitively need to put that in quotes, given the amount of "recruiter" spam I've received from that site over the years.

  • You mean "accounts created", or the MAX(KEY) FROM User's So many alts, bots, spammers
  • I would just be happy with a check box to not alert me when someone is having a birthday. Getting rid of spam emails. You look like a good candidate for this job take a look, Job has nothing to do with anything in my linkedin profile. Lets start with simple things before we bring in the robots.
    • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      I don't think I ever gave them my birth date nor the few people "I follow" would have back in ~2000. Is it required now? What happens if you enter a fake birth date? Anyway, I never got a single birthday emails from them but I get the "Congratulate X for 20 years at company Y" although they left said company a long time ago. I also get "you might be interested into person X" because that person is like a friend of a friend of a friend of somebody "I follow" and I also get emails from people wanting to put

  • Greetings! I have found the perfect job for you. It has nothing to do with your background but we were careful enough to match a keyword in your resume with a keyword in the job posting, and it's even in the same state you live in! Please send an updated resume to get you started with the application.
  • by TheStatsMan ( 1763322 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @10:41AM (#63971816)

    The entire site exists to suckle at the teet of tech industry titans. Every other post is in some emoji clickbait format, seeking to glorify the worst of corporate America.

    • by kaur ( 1948056 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @11:26AM (#63971904)

      ... to glorify the worst of corporate America.

      LinkedIn also exports this "corporate America" to the rest of the world.

      LinkedIn works on the assumption that everybody is constantly looking for a new job. For this, it pushes you to be active on its platform. More connections, more reach, endorsements, posts, likes. All for being on the radar for headhunters, or for more bargaining power in your next job-seeking round.

      And my US colleagues tell that this is how it works there. You build your career like a ladder, expecting to take a new step every few years.

      Not all the world works like this. There is stability, loyalty and other stuff that the US market does not value at all.

      LinkedIn is exporting the US career model to the rest of the world. Good or bad? I don't know. But it is yet another field where the US dominance is visible, and where a single web service is changing the world.

      • Interesting point of view, though I am not sure if LinkedIn is actually doing anything based on a model except of "more clicks". Like facebook is suspected to have facilitated some election results due to their algorithms, but not specifically because Facebook execs wanted the result, just as results of "more engagement".

        Regarding your "good or bad?" question, I think a website is not going to have an effect on the job market. A colleague of mine has trouble finding a job because he changed every 2 years or

      • There is stability, loyalty and other stuff ...

        Most corporations are looking for employees that have already been trained by some other corporation. As the "next big thing" changes the definition of a desirable employee, HR will look for persons already having that experience.

        Or the job will change; casualization, gig-economy, after-hours on-call, and finding employees willing to suffer such abuse is difficult.

        LinkedIn is catering to the corporations who put stability and loyalty, second.

  • by Virtucon ( 127420 )

    After their censorship practices, there's no way I'll ever use them again.

    • Agreed. When they censor what people in China can say about their government, that's not a good look.

      For all the fawning I hear about how China has all these liberties, it's amazing how often people are arrested for speaking their mind.

  • I might use linkedin if I was looking for a job but otherwise I never pay attention to it. Every so often someone will message me on it and I won't know until a month later because I ignore it normally. I really does reek of a desperation to be a social media site.

  • LinkedIn is a business. Unlike other businesses LinkedIn created "shadow" profiles of people. These are users. But many (most?) have never been used, so all things being equal, a user account on LinkedIn is worth much less on average than other online businesses.

    As a business, their users they may or many not be worth much in total. However, quoting random user counts is not a good metric for LinkedIn and some statistic of value is needed.

  • by ByTor-2112 ( 313205 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @01:46PM (#63972220)

    Not being qualified for a job has stopped approximately zero applicants, from what I can tell. AI isn't going to change that!

  • I deleted my LinkedIn account a couple of years ago, nothing but spam.

  • Hard to believe if one just looks at the statistics for world population, Internet Access, etc. World Population https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org] and https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org] , Internet https://ourworldindata.org/int... [ourworldindata.org] . When you intersect the level and cost of the access, regions, and other constraints, it is silly. Even here in the land of unlimited data plans, ubiquitous wireless, and high speeds, anecdotally in my sphere of family, friends, acquaintances and next door to Amazon and Microsoft,
  • Check out a random LinkedIn profile. Chances are it will be that of somebody borderline genius, with a tremendous work capacity, an extensive experience in all sorts of leading edge technologies, and with a rich list of substantial contacts.
  • I advertised a job on LinkedIn just yesterday. Someone applied within one minute, literally as soon as I posted it I had an application. A full 50% of applications are missing the same clear requirement. I could have used craigslist for this quality of applicant.

  • ... whether they're a good candidate ...

    "I sorry Dave, I can't do that: You are not good because you lack 7 years of "Java 2022" experience."

    This AI doesn't change the HR department or the get-a-degree mind-set, so nothing is solved.

  • It depends on who you are connecting with and what is your activity in there. If you value quality over quantity and put some effort to build a network that is very close to your interests, you will receive the benefits. If you have a strictly professional profile, they won't bother you. I am using it for more than a decade and I have thousands of connections (I am not an occasional user with 100-something connections), which are very targeted to what my professional/industrial/academic interests are. It ca

Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer

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