What affect will LinkedIn’s new ‘featured applicant’ account have on established users?

In relative terms it hasn’t taken long for a previously free social networking platform to become a premium talent-match tool.  But are there tangible benefits to the latest proposal and are jobseekers prepared to pay to find a job?

LinkedIn’s Premium Jobseeker Account proposes that for as ‘little’ as $24.95 per month you can:

• Contact decision-makers
• Organise your search
• Get noticed
• Open up to opportunities
• See who’s interested in you

This all sounds wonderful but aren’t savvy LinkedIn users already doing this?  If you’re looking for marketing jobs, for instance, you join relevant marketing groups, right?  It’s obvious.  By instigating discussions and commenting on others jobseekers are able to highlight their expertise to prospective employers.  Similarly, blog-writers can add news articles, which feed straight into subscribers’ inboxes by virtue of daily or weekly group updates.  This self-promotion is free.

Group activity

Currently, one of LinkedIn’s core values is the ability to join pertinent groups and network within them, making relevant contacts along the way.  Clever exponents of this will ensure that their ‘thought-leadership’ doesn’t go unnoticed amongst prospective employers.  If you want to get introduced to ‘inside sources’ at companies you can do that already, using contacts you’ve made previously. 

Why should you need to pay for this?  In fact, licence to direct message someone in the same group as you is what makes membership so appealing.

It is unclear whether LinkedIn proposes a levy on inter-group connections but, if they did, it would surely undermine the value of group membership and antagonise group owners who work hard to not only increase member size but, in turn, bang the drum to LinkedIn’s uninitiated.

Standing out from the crowd

It’s obvious to most that by applying to the same generic jobs day-in day-out, the merits are unlikely to be fulfilling – though they are reflective of this apathetic ‘job-hunting’ strategy.  These days applicants are rewarded for their creativity in finding a job: personal branding; offline networking; blog-writing; working for free.  Putting your head above the parapet is what it’s all about.

And that resonates with LinkedIn, too.  Or at least it should.  The lack of participation within LinkedIn groups is astounding.  Jobseekers lament their lot but do nothing to maximise the potential the planet’s leading professional networking tool is offering them.  Having a profile that’s 100% complete is not enough; this doesn’t take any effort.  The energy is in driving that profile to the places where you need to be seen and where prospective employers hang out.

How to make the most from your LinkedIn networking.

Lazy nation

Is the Premium Jobseeker Account merely praying on our inherent indolence – our perception that ‘none of this is our fault’ and that the world owes us a living?  If it is, no problem.  It’s a clever model.  But don’t we owe it to ourselves to do something more proactive as individuals, rather than relying on technological products and services to do it for us?  To this extent we’re talking networking, on and offline.  And this is significantly different to making loads of connections but doing next-to-nothing with them.

So is charging jobseekers wrong?

In short, no.  And it’s nothing new.  Provided the service offering is tangible there is nothing wrong with monetising today’s indifferent employment market.  Jobseekers, whether ‘active’ or ‘passive’ (to separate what is ostensibly the same) should demand more from a premium service, however: invitations to networking events; discounts on training courses; industry white-papers; career guidance that goes beyond Job Centre Plus!  These are benefits worth paying for.  What would you pay for this?

But where LinkedIn is concerned, isn’t the offering somewhat misguided?  And is it not coming at the expense of the platform’s exponents – biting the hand that feeds, so to speak?  Moreover, jobseekers should be assured that they receive more from a paid-for-service than they would otherwise for free.  And if LinkedIn is proposing an ‘all-or-nothing’ approach, it may find there are more detractors than eulogists.

Here’s the promotional tutorial showing how to get the most out of the features in your Job Seeker Premium Account.  One can’t help but feel we’re already receiving these benefits.  For free.

What are your thoughts on charging jobseekers – through LinkedIn or other channels?  Is it wrong?  It is right?  What would you pay if it helped enhance your career?

Simon Lewis | Editor | Only Marketing Jobs

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