Oh LinkedIn, You Have Some Work To Do! (Part 1)

LinkedIn is the go-to social media tool of the recession - obviously. It's a way to network in your PJs on the couch, network 24x7, network with the former coworkers you don't REALLY want to talk to, but might be good to know if their company is hiring. It's a great tool and has tons of great functionality - things I find VERY useful. It still has a lot of opportunity to improve - some of my Pros & Cons are listed below.

"Who's viewed my profile?" widget.

Pros:

• Users can see if HR or hiring managers have visited their profile recently - users may be tipped off to potential job openings if the profile visit is from a company not necessarily on their "job seeking radar".
• Reveals new potential contacts or colleagues you may have lost contact with a while ago.
• You can control privacy by closing your profile to people who are not contacts.

Cons:

• Can be vague - see image below for vague!
• Must pay for the upgrade to see list of ALL profile visitors. (Actually - I don't have the paid version, so I don't know just what the paid version gives you regarding this and it's not detailed when you click the upgrade button - making that a bonus "con".)
• They don't give you when someone has been on your profile - more specifically, they don't tell you more than a range of days - and they bump the time range around to make it look like you have more visitors on your profile.
• Closed profiles may hide your information from a hiring manager - if you're looking for a job, you need to be out there & obvious!

Groups

Pros:

• People can participate by asking and answering questions.
• Opportunities to strategically expand your network.
• Free job listings - good for HR good for job seekers!

Cons:

• Groups can not transfer ownership.
  (Consideration: A company creates a group enhance communication with it's B2B customers. Group launched by a manager within the company. The group flourishes and becomes a great resource for customer input. Economy sours, manager gets laid off and takes the group with him/her.)
• Filtering group content is impossible.
• Subgroup membership depends on general group membership.
• Users can not aggregate their group emails, so instead of a daily or weekly summary, people with multiple groups get an individual email from each group. They can opt out, but then have to proactively scan the groups for meaningful data.

There are so many more opportunities for LinkedIn to improve the user experience. Please send me feedback so I can include your thoughts in the post - or you'll just have to read all of my thoughts on this topic! The next pieces in this series is coming soon - stay tuned!