LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the ultimate platform for building your professional network and showcasing your personal brand.

Category	Details
Logo	In use since September 2021
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, California
Business Type	Subsidiary
Site Type	Professional networking service
Languages Available	27 languages
Founded	May 5, 2003, in Mountain View, California
Headquarters Location	Sunnyvale, California, U.S.
Area Served	Worldwide
Founders	Reid Hoffman, Eric Ly
CEO	Ryan Roslansky
Key People	Melissa Selcher (CMO), Raghu Hiremagalur (CTO), James Chuong (CFO), Jeff Weiner (Executive Chairman)
Industry	Internet
Revenue (2023)	$15.15 billion
Employees (2024)	18,500
Parent Company	Microsoft
Subsidiaries	LinkedIn Learning, Connectifier, Drawbridge, Glint
Website	www.linkedin.com
Advertising	AdSense
Registration	Required
Monthly Active Users	310 million (as of February 2023)
Launched	May 5, 2003
Current Status	Active

LinkedIn is a social media platform that focuses on business and employment, accessible through both websites and mobile apps. It was started on May 5, 2003, by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, Microsoft has owned LinkedIn. The platform is mainly used for professional networking and career growth where job seekers can share their resumes and companies can list job openings. Since 2015, a big part of LinkedIn’s income has come from selling access to member information to recruiters and sales teams. LinkedIn has over 1 billion users from more than 200 countries.

LinkedIn lets both employees and employers create profiles and connect with others in a professional network, often reflecting real-life work relationships. Members can invite anyone even those not yet on LinkedIn, to join as a connection. The platform can also be used for organizing offline events, joining groups, writing articles, sharing job openings and posting photos and videos, among other activities.

Company Overview

LinkedIn was founded in Mountain View, California and is now based in Sunnyvale, California, with 36 offices around the world as of February 2024. By that time, the company had about 18,500 employees.

The current CEO is Ryan Roslansky, while Jeff Weiner, who was previously the CEO, now serves as Executive Chairman. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s founder, is the chairman of the board. The company was backed by investors like Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn became profitable in March 2006. By January 2011, it had raised $103 million in total investments (around $138 million by 2023). LinkedIn went public in May 2011, trading under the stock symbol “LNKD” on the New York Stock Exchange.

History

Founded Between 2002 to 2011

LinkedIn was founded in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman and a team of people from PayPal and Socialnet.com including Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant and others. In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the first major investment in the company. By August 2004, LinkedIn had 1 million users. The company made its first profit in March 2006. By April 2007, the platform had grown to 10 million users and in February 2008, LinkedIn launched its mobile version.

In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and other investors bought 5% of LinkedIn for $53 million, giving the company a value of around $1 billion. In November 2009, LinkedIn opened an office in Mumbai and later expanded to Sydney as it grew its Asia-Pacific team. In 2010, the company opened its International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and received a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management, boosting its value to about $2 billion. That same year, LinkedIn made its first acquisition by purchasing Mspoke and improved its premium subscriptions. By December 2010, LinkedIn was valued at $1.575 billion in private markets. LinkedIn started its India operations in 2009, with the first year focused on understanding the Indian professional landscape and helping users use LinkedIn for career growth.

2011 to Present

LinkedIn filed for its initial public offering (IPO) in January 2011 and began trading shares on May 19, 2011, under the symbol “LNKD” on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares were priced at $45 each (around $60 in today’s money) but on the first day, they surged by 171%, closing at $94.25, more than double the original price. After the IPO, LinkedIn upgraded its infrastructure to speed up updates. In 2011, LinkedIn made $154.6 million from advertising, beating Twitter’s $139.5 million. By the end of 2011, LinkedIn had about 2,100 employees, a big jump from the 500 employees it had in 2010.

In April 2014, LinkedIn announced it had leased a 26-story building at 222 Second Street in San Francisco’s SoMa district for 10 years. This building was meant to house up to 2,500 employees, bringing together sales, marketing and research teams. By January 2016, 1,250 employees were working there and in March 2016, they started moving into the new space. However, in February 2016, LinkedIn’s shares dropped by 43.6% in a single day, falling to $108.38 per share, causing the company to lose $10 billion in market value.

In 2016, Russian authorities blocked access to LinkedIn because it didn’t comply with a law requiring social media companies to store Russian citizens’ data on local servers.

In June 2016, Microsoft announced it would buy LinkedIn for $196 per share, totaling $26.2 billion. This became Microsoft’s biggest acquisition until it purchased Activision Blizzard in 2022. The deal was all-cash and debt-financed. Microsoft allowed LinkedIn to keep its unique brand, culture and independence with Jeff Weiner remaining as CEO, reporting to Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella. Analysts believed Microsoft wanted to integrate LinkedIn with its Office products to better connect the professional network with its software. The acquisition was finalized on December 8, 2016.

Also, in late 2016, LinkedIn announced plans to add 200 new jobs to its Dublin office increasing its workforce there to 1,200 employees. By 2017, 94% of B2B marketers were using LinkedIn to share content.

After Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, a new desktop version was launched. This update was designed to create a smoother experience across both mobile and desktop. Some features were removed like contact tagging and filtering, based on feedback from the earlier mobile app version.

However, after the new interface was launched, some users—both free and premium—complained about missing features, slowness and bugs on both desktop and mobile.

In 2019, LinkedIn introduced the “Open for Business” feature, allowing freelancers to be discovered on the platform. That same year, LinkedIn also launched LinkedIn Events globally.

In June 2020, Jeff Weiner stepped down as CEO after 11 years and became executive chairman. Ryan Roslansky who was previously the senior vice president of product took over as CEO. In July 2020, LinkedIn laid off 960 employees (around 6% of the workforce), mainly from talent acquisition and global sales teams due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2021, it was reported that data from 500 million LinkedIn accounts had leaked online. LinkedIn investigated and said the data was a collection from various websites not a direct breach of LinkedIn.

In June 2021, more than 700 million LinkedIn records were found for sale on a hacker forum. LinkedIn clarified that it wasn’t a security breach but data scraping which violated their Terms of Service.

In October 2021, Microsoft ended LinkedIn operations in China. In 2022, LinkedIn earned $13.8 billion in revenue, up from $10.3 billion in 2021.

In May 2023, LinkedIn cut 716 jobs from its 20,000 employees to streamline its operations, as explained by CEO Ryan Roslansky. Despite these cuts, the company planned to create 250 new job opportunities. LinkedIn also decided to discontinue its China-based local job apps.

In June 2024, it was reported that LinkedIn was testing a new AI assistant for its paid Premium users.

In September 2024, LinkedIn suspended its use of UK user data for training AI models after concerns were raised by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The platform had quietly included users worldwide for data use in AI training but after the feedback, LinkedIn paused this for UK users and provided them with an option to opt out. A company spokesperson emphasized that users have always had control over how their data is used.

LinkedIn Acquisitions Table

No.	Acquisition Date	Company	Business	Country	Price	Description
1	August 4, 2010	mspoke	Adaptive personalization of content	USA	$0.6 million	LinkedIn Recommendations
2	September 23, 2010	ChoiceVendor	Social B2B Reviews	USA	$3.9 million	Rate and review B2B service providers
3	January 26, 2011	CardMunch	Social Contacts	USA	$1.7 million	Scan and import business cards
4	October 5, 2011	Connected	Social CRM	USA	Not disclosed	LinkedIn Connected
5	October 11, 2011	IndexTank	Social search	USA	Not disclosed	LinkedIn Search
6	February 22, 2012	Rapportive	Social Contacts	USA	$15 million	–
7	2012	ESAYA Inc.	Social Content	USA	Not disclosed	TrueSwitch – Migrate Email, Contacts & Calendar data
8	May 3, 2012	SlideShare	Social Content	USA	$119 million	Give LinkedIn members a way to discover people through content
9	April 11, 2013	Pulse	Web / Mobile newsreader	USA	$90 million	Definitive professional publishing platform
10	February 6, 2014	Bright.com	Job Matching	USA	$120 million	–
11	July 14, 2014	Newsle	Web application	USA	Not disclosed	Follow real news about Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, and public figures
12	July 22, 2014	Bizo	Web application	USA	$175 million	Help advertisers reach businesses and professionals
13	March 16, 2015	Careerify	Web application	Canada	Not disclosed	Help businesses hire people using social media
14	April 2, 2015	Refresh.io	Web application	USA	Not disclosed	Show insights about people in your network before meetings
15	April 9, 2015	Lynda.com	eLearning	USA	$1.5 billion	Learn business, technology, software, and creative skills through videos
16	August 28, 2015	Fliptop	Predictive Sales and Marketing Firm	USA	Not disclosed	Use data science to help companies close more sales
17	February 4, 2016	Connectifier	Web application	USA	Not disclosed	Help companies with their recruiting
18	July 26, 2016	PointDrive	Web application	USA	Not disclosed	Let salespeople share visual content with prospective clients
19	September 16, 2018	Glint Inc.	Web application	USA	Not disclosed	Employee engagement platform
20	May 28, 2019	Drawbridge	Marketing Solutions	USA	Not disclosed	–

Perkins

In 2013, a class action lawsuit called Perkins vs. LinkedIn Corp was filed. The lawsuit claimed that LinkedIn automatically sent invitations to people in a member’s email address book without their permission. The court agreed that LinkedIn had permission to send the initial invitations but not the two follow-up reminder emails. In 2015, LinkedIn settled the case for $13 million (about $16.3 million in 2023). Many LinkedIn members should have received an email titled “Legal Notice of Settlement of Class Action.” The case number is 13-CV-04303-LHK.

hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn Case

In May 2017, LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter to hiQ Labs, a startup that collects data from public LinkedIn profiles and analyzes it for its clients. LinkedIn asked hiQ to stop “scraping” data from its servers, claiming it violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In response, hiQ sued LinkedIn, asking the court to prevent LinkedIn from blocking its access to public profiles while the case was being considered. The court issued a preliminary ruling in favor of hiQ, forcing LinkedIn to allow the data collection to continue. LinkedIn appealed but in September 2019, the appeals court upheld the original decision. The legal battle is still ongoing.

LinkedIn Membership Growth

By 2015, LinkedIn had more than 400 million members across over 200 countries and territories, far surpassing Viadeo which had 50 million members in 2013. In 2011, LinkedIn’s membership was growing by about two new members every second. By 2020, the platform had over 690 million members. As of September 2021, LinkedIn had over 774 million registered members from more than 200 countries and territories.

Platform & Features

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital business card — it’s the first impression you make in the professional world.

User Profile Network

LinkedIn’s basic features allow users to create profiles which usually include their work experience, education, skills and a personal photo. Employers can post jobs and search for potential candidates, while users can look for jobs, connect with people and explore business opportunities through their network. Users can also save jobs they are interested in and follow companies.

Members can connect with others on LinkedIn, forming a professional network that often reflects real-world work relationships. They can invite anyone to connect and also get introduced to people through their connections (second-degree connections) or through those people’s connections (third-degree connections).

A member’s list of connections can be used in various ways. For example, users can look for second-degree connections working at a company they’re interested in and ask a mutual first-degree connection for an introduction. This “gated-access approach” where you need a relationship or a contact to connect with someone, is meant to build trust. LinkedIn follows the EU’s International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.

Users can interact on LinkedIn in several ways:

• Connections can “like” posts, send congratulations for things like job changes or birthdays and send direct messages.
• Users can share videos with text and filters through LinkedIn Video.
• Members can write posts and articles to share with their network.

Since 2012, LinkedIn allows users to endorse each other’s skills, though there’s no option to flag anything but positive content. LinkedIn suggests skills based on algorithms and users can’t opt out of receiving endorsement requests, sometimes leading to endorsements for skills they may not actually have.

Applications

LinkedIn applications often refer to third-party tools that work with LinkedIn’s developer API but can also mean approved apps shown on a user’s profile page.

External Third-Party Applications

In February 2015, LinkedIn updated the terms for its developer API. This API lets companies and individuals build third-party apps that can interact with LinkedIn data. These apps need to be reviewed and must ask for the user’s permission before accessing their data.

The standard use of LinkedIn’s API includes:

• Signing into external services using LinkedIn credentials
• Adding information or attributes to a user’s profile
• Sharing items or articles to a user’s LinkedIn timeline

Embedded Applications in LinkedIn Profiles

In October 2008, LinkedIn introduced an “applications platform” that lets users add external online services to their profile page. Some of the first apps included an Amazon Reading List (to show books members are reading), Tripit (for travel plans) and a blog display tool for platforms like WordPress and TypePad.

In November 2010, LinkedIn allowed businesses to list products and services on their company profiles and members could “recommend” and review them. However, some of these services, like Amazon’s Reading List, were later removed from LinkedIn.

Launch Mobile Site

In February 2008, LinkedIn launched a mobile version of its site in six languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app that scans business cards and converts them into contacts. By June 2013, CardMunch was available as a LinkedIn app.

In October 2013, LinkedIn introduced a service for iPhone users called “Intro.” This feature adds a LinkedIn profile thumbnail when reading emails in the iOS Mail app. However, this works by rerouting emails through LinkedIn servers which raised concerns about privacy and security. Security firm Bishop Fox pointed out that this method could violate security policies and resemble a man-in-the-middle attack.

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn allows users to form interest groups. By 2012, there were over 1.2 million groups, with member counts ranging from 1 to over 744,000. Groups have discussion areas that are moderated by the group owners and managers. Some groups are private and only accessible to members, while others are open to the public for reading but users must join to post messages.

Groups can sometimes attract spam, as they reach a wide audience without triggering spam filters easily. Some companies even offer services to post spam in these groups. LinkedIn has created tools to reduce spam and at one point removed the option for group owners to check new members’ email addresses to identify potential spammers.

Group members receive emails with updates including the most talked-about discussions in their professional circles.

In December 2011, LinkedIn introduced polls for groups. In November 2013, they added Showcase Pages to the platform. By 2014, LinkedIn announced they would be removing Product and Services Pages to focus more on Showcase Pages.

Knowledge Graph

LinkedIn has an internal knowledge graph that keeps track of people, organizations and groups. This helps the platform connect people working in the same field or company. It can also be used to find updates related to these entities. Additionally, LinkedIn uses this system to train machine learning models, allowing them to learn more about people or companies and provide better insights and summaries.

Discontinued LinkedIn Features

In January 2013, LinkedIn stopped supporting LinkedIn Answers. This feature which started in 2007, let users ask questions and get ranked answers from their network. LinkedIn said it wanted to focus on creating new ways to share and discuss professional topics.

In 2014, LinkedIn retired InMaps, a tool that helped users visualize their professional connections. This feature had been available since January 2011.

LinkedIn Referrals which helped employees recommend candidates for jobs, was discontinued in May 2018.

In September 2021, LinkedIn ended LinkedIn Stories, a feature launched in October 2020 that allowed users to post temporary content.

Usage

Personal Branding

LinkedIn is great for personal branding which involves managing your image and showcasing your unique value to attract career opportunities. It has grown from just a job search platform into a social network where users can build a personal brand. Career coach Pamela Green describes a personal brand as the emotional impression you want people to have when they interact with you and your LinkedIn profile is part of that. Another view is that a personal brand is your public persona, displayed on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, to show expertise and make new connections.

LinkedIn helps professionals build their brand both on the site and across the web. It features a tool called the Profile Strength Meter which encourages users to provide enough information to make their profile more visible in search results. Joining professional groups on LinkedIn can also boost a user’s presence. Users can even add videos to their profiles and some people hire professional photographers for their profile pictures. As LinkedIn’s features grow, a market of consultants has emerged to help users improve their profiles and make the most of the platform.

There’s no way to stay unnoticed on LinkedIn… The biggest mistake people make is not having a profile photo.

— Sandra Long, Post Road Consulting, 2017

In 2012, LinkedIn introduced the LinkedIn Influencers program, where global thought leaders share their professional insights with members. By 2016, the program had over 750 Influencers. This program is invite-only and includes leaders from various industries such as Richard Branson, Narendra Modi, Arianna Huffington, Bill Gates and others.

Job Seeking

LinkedIn is widely used by job seekers and employers. Jack Meyer calls it the top platform for professionals to network online. In Australia, about 10 million of the 12 million working professionals use LinkedIn, meaning there’s a good chance a future employer is on the site. Globally, it’s estimated that 122 million users got job interviews through LinkedIn and 35 million were hired because of a LinkedIn connection.

LinkedIn lets users research companies, non-profits and governments they might want to work for. When you type a company name into the search box, details about the company pop up such as the ratio of male to female employees, common job titles and office locations. In 2011, LinkedIn introduced the “Apply with LinkedIn” button, allowing people to apply for jobs using their LinkedIn profiles as resumes.

LinkedIn also helps small businesses connect with customers. Users have “first-degree connections” when they accept each other’s invitations. “Second-degree connections” are people connected to their connections and “third-degree connections” are those further linked to them. This network increases the chances of showing up in LinkedIn searches.

LinkedIn Profinder is a platform where freelancers can bid on projects posted by individuals or small businesses. For a monthly fee, freelancers can offer services like photography, bookkeeping and tax filing. In 2017, it had about 60,000 freelancers across 140 service areas.

The way people connect on LinkedIn has changed in recent years. Before 2017, LinkedIn encouraged connections only between people who had worked, studied or done business together. Since 2017, that step has been removed and users can now connect with up to 30,000 people. This change makes LinkedIn more proactive for job seekers looking for new opportunities or for salespeople wanting to find new clients.

Top Companies

LinkedIn’s Top Companies is a series of lists that highlight the most popular companies among job seekers in countries like the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada and others. In 2019, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) was ranked as the most sought-after company in the U.S., followed by Facebook and Amazon. These rankings are based on over one billion actions by LinkedIn members worldwide. The Top Companies lists began in 2016 and are updated yearly. In 2021, Amazon was ranked first, Alphabet second and JPMorgan Chase third.

LinkedIn Top Voices & other rankings

Since 2015, LinkedIn has published yearly rankings called Top Voices, recognizing members whose posts generated the most engagement and interaction. The 2020 lists covered 14 industries, from data science to sports and included 14 countries, from Australia to Italy.

LinkedIn also releases annual rankings of Top Startups in more than 12 countries. These rankings are based on factors like employment growth, job interest, engagement and the ability to attract top talent.

Advertising & Research

In 2008, LinkedIn introduced LinkedIn DirectAds, a form of sponsored advertising. In October of that year, LinkedIn also explored using its network of 30 million professionals for business-to-business research, a potential revenue model that seemed more promising than advertising to some.

On July 23, 2013, LinkedIn launched its Sponsored Updates ad service, allowing individuals and companies to pay to promote their content to LinkedIn’s user base, similar to how other social media for example YouTube or others platforms generate revenue.

In 2018, LinkedIn introduced carousel ads where businesses can display products or services through swipeable cards with unique images, headlines and descriptions. These ads can be used to promote new products, drive website traffic, generate leads or build brand awareness.

Business Manager & Publishing Platform

LinkedIn introduced Business Manager as a centralized platform to help large companies and agencies manage their people, ad accounts and business pages more easily.

In 2015, LinkedIn added an analytics tool to its publishing platform. This tool allows authors to track the traffic their posts receive, helping users monitor their post performance and grow their audience.

Future Plans

Economic Graph

In 2012, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner set a goal to create an “economic graph” within 10 years, similar to Facebook’s “social graph.” The idea was to build a digital map of the world economy and the connections within it. This would include data on companies, jobs, skills, educational institutions and more. The goal is to list all available jobs, the skills needed and the professionals who can fill those roles, to make the job market more efficient and transparent.

In 2014, LinkedIn introduced its “Galene” search system, allowing users to search the economic graph’s data with more detailed filters, like finding “Engineers with Hadoop experience in Brazil.”

LinkedIn has used its economic graph data to publish blog posts on various job market topics such as the most popular cities for recent college graduates, areas with a high concentration of tech skills and common career changes. LinkedIn also provided New York City with data on in-demand tech skills for the city’s “Tech Talent Pipeline” project.

LinkedIn connects you to a world of professionals, creating endless possibilities for career growth and learning.

LinkedIn Role in Networking

TechRepublic has called LinkedIn the “go-to tool for professional networking.” It has been praised for helping people build business relationships.

Forbes described LinkedIn as the best social networking tool available for job seekers and professionals.

 LinkedIn has also inspired other networking platforms like Shiftgig, a Chicago startup for hourly workers, founded by Eddie Lou in 2012.

Criticism & Controversies

Controversial Design Choices

Endorsement Feature

LinkedIn’s endorsement feature which lets members endorse each other’s skills, has been criticized for being meaningless because endorsements aren’t always accurate or given by people who truly know the person’s skills. In 2016, LinkedIn responded to this criticism by starting to highlight endorsements from coworkers and mutual connections aiming to make them more credible.

Use of Email Accounts

LinkedIn has been criticized for sending invitation emails to the Outlook contacts of its members without their consent. These emails make it look like the invitation is coming directly from the member. If there’s no response, LinkedIn sends repeated follow-up emails. LinkedIn was sued in the U.S. for hijacking email accounts and spamming but the company defended its actions as part of helping users build their networks.

When signing up, users enter their email password (though there’s an opt-out option). LinkedIn then offers to send invitations to all the contacts in their address book or to people they’ve emailed before. LinkedIn was also sued for sending two follow-up invitations to contacts who didn’t respond to the original invite.

In 2014, LinkedIn lost a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The court ruled that the invitations were considered advertisements and were not protected by free speech rights. This meant LinkedIn couldn’t use people’s names and images without their permission.

The lawsuit was settled in 2015, with LinkedIn members winning the case.

Moving Emails to LinkedIn Servers

In late 2013, it was revealed that the LinkedIn app was intercepting users’ emails and quietly moving them to LinkedIn servers for full access. This was done using man-in-the-middle attacks.

Security Incidents

2012 Hack

In 2012, hackers, including Yevgeniy Nikulin, stole the cryptographic hashes of around 6.4 million LinkedIn user passwords and published them online. This became known as the 2012 LinkedIn hack. In response, LinkedIn asked users to change their passwords. Security experts criticized LinkedIn for not properly securing their passwords with techniques like salting or stronger encryption.

On May 31, 2013, LinkedIn added two-factor authentication to improve security. In 2016, 117 million LinkedIn usernames and passwords from the 2012 hack were offered for sale online. LinkedIn had previously underestimated the number of accounts compromised.

To manage the large number of emails it sends daily for notifications, LinkedIn uses the Momentum email platform from Message Systems.

2021 LinkedIn Breaches

In 2021, a data breach affected 500 million LinkedIn users. Another breach in June 2021 was believed to have impacted 92% of users, exposing contact and employment information. LinkedIn stated that the data was gathered through web scraping from LinkedIn and other sites, and only included information that users had publicly listed on their profiles.

Malicious Behavior on LinkedIn

Phishing

• Operation Socialist: In a case called Operation Socialist, documents revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013 showed that British intelligence tricked employees of the Belgian telecom company Belgacom by luring them to a fake LinkedIn page.
• Iran-Based Cyber Threats: In 2014, Dell SecureWorks found that an Iran-based group, Threat Group-2889, created 25 fake LinkedIn accounts. These accounts were used for spearphishing and malicious websites to target victims.

• Chinese Espionage: According to Le Figaro, French security agencies believe that Chinese spies have used LinkedIn to target thousands of business and government officials for information. In 2017, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) reported that Chinese intelligence agencies created fake profiles on LinkedIn to gather information on German politicians and government officials.
• 2022 & 2023 Phishing:

In 2022, LinkedIn was ranked as the most imitated brand in phishing attempts.

In 2023, hackers targeted several LinkedIn users, locking them out of their accounts and demanding a ransom, threatening to permanently delete their accounts if they didn’t pay.

False & Misleading Information

LinkedIn has faced criticism for how it handles misinformation and disinformation. The platform has struggled with dealing with fake profiles and false information related to COVID-19 and the 2020 US presidential election.

Privacy Policy

The German organization Stiftung Warentest has criticized LinkedIn for having an unbalanced privacy policy. They believe it gives the company too many rights while limiting the rights of users. Additionally, it has been claimed that LinkedIn does not respond to requests from consumer protection groups.

Research on Labor Market Effects

In 2010, a study in Social Science Computer Review found that LinkedIn and Facebook were being used by recruiters in Belgium to find job applicants for professional roles and to gather additional information about candidates. Recruiters also used these platforms to decide who would get interviews.

In 2017, Research Policy published a study on PhD holders using LinkedIn. It found that PhD graduates who moved into industry were more likely to have LinkedIn accounts and larger networks. Those with co-authors abroad and those who moved abroad after getting their PhD also tended to have wider LinkedIn networks.

In 2017, sociologist Ofer Sharone interviewed unemployed workers to study the impact of LinkedIn and Facebook in the job market. He found that these platforms filter candidates in ways unrelated to merit, putting new pressure on workers to shape their careers to fit the platform’s filtering process.

In October 2018, professors from the Foster School of Business—Melissa Rhee, Elina Hwang and Yong Tan—analyzed how LinkedIn connections impact job referrals. They discovered that job seekers are less likely to be referred by employees from the target company or field, likely due to job similarity and competition. However, employees in higher positions were more likely to give referrals and gender similarity didn’t reduce this competitive self-protection.

Research on Job Market Effects

In 2019, sociologists Steve McDonald, Amanda K. Damarin, Jenelle Lawhorne and Annika Wilcox interviewed 61 recruiters in the Southern U.S. They found that recruiters for low- and general-skilled jobs typically used online job boards, while recruiters for high-skilled or supervisor roles targeted passive candidates on LinkedIn—people who are already employed but open to new opportunities. This approach has led to a job market where high-skilled workers are heavily sought after, while active job seekers face tough competition on job boards.

In 2001, a study published in the ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin highlighted the lack of research on digital tools for blue-collar workers and warned that this gap could lead to technology that gives more power to managers instead of workers.

Research on LinkedIn’s Impact on Job Seekers

In a September 2019 study, economists Laurel Wheeler, Robert Garlick and researchers from RTI International conducted an experiment in South Africa, training job seekers to use LinkedIn as part of job readiness programs. The study found that this training increased employment by about 10% by helping connect job seekers and employers. The effect lasted around 12 months but the training didn’t reduce job search costs or both trained and untrained groups had similar chances for job retention, promotion and permanent contracts.

In 2020, a study published in Applied Economics by Steffen Brenner, Sezen Aksin Sivrikaya and Joachim Schwalbach showed that high-status individuals tend to join professional networking sites like LinkedIn, while workers dissatisfied with their career status are less likely to use these platforms for networking benefits.

International Restrictions

In 2011, LinkedIn was blocked in China after calls for a “Jasmine Revolution,” likely because it provided access to Twitter which was already blocked. After a day, access to LinkedIn was restored.

In February 2014, LinkedIn launched a Simplified Chinese version called “领英” (Lǐngyīng, meaning “leading elite“) to officially expand in China. LinkedIn’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, acknowledged that the company would need to censor some content to comply with Chinese regulations. However, he felt that providing the service in China was worth the compromise. Since late 2017, job postings from Western countries for China have no longer been possible.

In 2016, a Moscow court ordered LinkedIn to be blocked in Russia for violating a law requiring Russian user data to be stored on servers within the country. This law had been in effect since 2014. The ban was upheld on 10, 2016 and Russian ISPs began blocking LinkedIn. By 2017, LinkedIn’s mobile app was also removed from the Google Play Store and iOS App Store in Russia. In 2021, LinkedIn was also blocked in Kazakhstan.

In October 2021, Microsoft announced that LinkedIn would shut down in China after reports surfaced of accounts being blocked. The platform was replaced with a China-only app called InJobs due to challenges in operating and compliance. In 2023, LinkedIn announced that it would phase out InJobs by August 9, 2023.

Account Ban

Since 2022, LinkedIn has been banning accounts that don’t meet its guidelines without giving users any prior warning.

Open-Source Contributions

Since 2010, LinkedIn has shared several of its internal technologies and tools with the open-source community. One of the most notable projects is Apache Kafka which LinkedIn developed and made open-source in 2011.

Research Using LinkedIn Data

LinkedIn’s large data sets allow scientists and machine learning researchers to gain insights and create new features. For example, research using this data has shown that people are more likely to lie about their hobbies than their work experience on online resumes.

LinkedIn is more than just a networking site, it’s a dynamic space where opportunities and potential come together and every connection can lead to professional growth.

FAQs for LinkedIn

How do I log in to LinkedIn?

To log in, visit LinkedIn’s website, enter your email or phone number and password, then click “Sign In.”

How do I find jobs on LinkedIn?

Go to the “Jobs” tab at the top of the homepage. You can search for jobs by title, location and company. You can also save jobs and set job alerts.

How do I delete my LinkedIn account?

To delete your LinkedIn account:

• Go to your LinkedIn settings.
• Under “Account Preferences,” click “Close Account.”
• Follow the instructions to confirm the closure.

How do I add a resume to LinkedIn?

To add your resume:

• Click on your profile icon.
• Go to “Add Profile Section” and choose “Featured.”
• Click “Media” and upload your resume.

What is the LinkedIn banner size?

The recommended banner size for LinkedIn is 1584 x 396 pixels.

How do I cancel LinkedIn Premium?

To cancel LinkedIn Premium:

• Go to your LinkedIn homepage.
• Click on “Me” at the top right and select “Access My Premium.”
• In the “Manage Premium” section, click on “Cancel Subscription” and follow the instructions.

Can you block people on LinkedIn?

Yes, you can block someone on LinkedIn:

• Go to the person’s profile.
• Click the “More” button and select “Report/Block.”
• Choose “Block” and confirm.

What subject should I use when messaging a recruiter on LinkedIn?

Use a concise, professional subject line like:

• “Interested in [Position Name]”
• “Exploring Opportunities at [Company]”
• “Introduction for [Position] Role”

How do I get a LinkedIn QR Code?

To get your LinkedIn QR code:

• Open the LinkedIn mobile app.
• Tap the search bar.
• Click on the QR code icon in the top right corner.
• You can scan or share your personal QR code from there.

Is LinkedIn Premium worth it?

LinkedIn Premium can be worth it if you’re:

• Job hunting and want more insights on job postings.
• Looking to reach out to recruiters directly.
• Seeking additional learning tools and access to LinkedIn Learning.

How do I indicate “Incoming Intern at Tesla Fall” on LinkedIn?

To add your internship at Tesla:

• Go to your profile.
• Click “Add Profile Section” and select “Experience.”
• Input your internship details including “Incoming Intern at Tesla Fall.”