LinkedIn roll out new student hub
20th March 14
LinkedIn announced that they are launching a new dedicated hub for students this week, to meet increased demand from its fastest growing demographic.
LinkedIn is different from Twitter and Facebook in that following and friending people who don’t know is frowned upon. The idea behind the app is that you make your connections in a more natural way. LinkedIn users are advised to make connections with people that have met in real life.
‘We don’t recommend people going out and connecting with everyone,’ said Darain Faraz, Communications Manager.
It’s a vastly different world from the one into which LinkedIn was born in 2003.
‘In the past, if I had a job and wanted to hire someone, I’d put an ad in the paper and hope someone might see it, and if they do see it that they might be the right person and that they would apply for it and they’d come in,’ said Faraz. ‘It was a fairly clunky old process’.
Ten years and 227 million global users down the line and LinkedIn is the first port of call for many job seekers and employers. This week LinkedIn announced that it has passed the 1million user mark in the UK – a 5 million user increase over two years. And the fastest growing user base on LinkedIn is students. Worried by the changing economic climate, their numbers have doubled in the last year.
A recent survey revealed that up to two thirds of students felt unprepared for the life in the real world.
‘A lot of students feel that the current economic climate has put their dreams on hold,’ said Faraz. ‘They feel they’re not really ready for the world of work and universities don’t necessarily teach them the skills they need to find that job. On average, they’re applying for 12 jobs before getting their first job, and of those unsuccessful applications, they’re not really getting any feedback on why they weren’t successful.’
With this in mind LinkedIn launched a separate hub solely for students this week.
