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LinkedIn introduced a resume building tool a while ago that, even though it’s slick, simple to use, and creates attractive resumes, would be otherwise unremarkable.
Except that it’s LinkedIn offering it. And it’s a step better than what Monster and CareerBuilder offer. And, more to the point, it’s another step in the LinkedIn transformation from a business-oriented social network to … something else, like a job board for the 21st century.
The LinkedIn people don’t necessarily agree with that. Francois Dufour, senior director of marketing, LinkedIn Hiring Solutions, wrote to tell me that “LinkedIn is a professional network.” It’s “a platform for helping professionals manage their careers.”
“Whether you’re looking to hire or be hired, LinkedIn is becoming top of mind for a lot of people,” Dufour says in his response to my email about what LinkedIn is becoming. “Yet the reason we continue to thrive is that we offer so much more than a job board.”
True enough. Being public, a profile is a marketing and brand-building tool. Participating in groups and building a network furthers those objectives, as well as gives participants a place to get help with professional problems.
Traditional job boards have their discussion groups, but nothing even remotely approaching what LinkedIn has. Yet with what we’ve been seeing from LinkedIn over the years, the camel’s nose is getting further and further into the job board tent.
Recruiters began sifting through the profiles years ago. So adding LinkedIn Jobs in 2005 was, as Jeff Clavier described it a “natural extension.” Since then, the network has refined its candidate sourcing tools, improved the targeting of its jobs listings, added company profiles in what might fairly be described as a response to Facebook and, in the last two months, LinkedIn has added Jobs For You and Referral Engine (which ERE wrote about last month).
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