LinkedIn offers free public individual profile and company pages as a form of social networking. Company pages can showcase a business to potential employees or customers. Personal profiles allow workers to make connections, give recommendations, and search for relevant employment opportunities. Users can share articles, videos, comments, and ideas with followers and connections. Additional services must be purchased. The basic LinkedIn premium plans and prices are as follows:

Job Seeker: 1 free month, then $29.99/month
Business Plus: 1 free month, then $47.99/month
Sales Navigator Professional: 1 free month, then $64.99/month
Recruiter Lite: 1 free month, then starts at $99.95/month

Larger companies with more extensive recruitment or advertising goals can upgrade to sponsored content to get their company's updates to more people, attract new followers, and get their message out on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. These plans are set up based on the company's budget and can be cost per click or cost per impression. Similar to the premium plans' option for a free trial, a free demo is available for sponsored content.

Reach

LinkedIn has over 433 million account members, with 106 million unique visiting members each month. There are 128 million members in the U.S., but the majority live in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

Special Features

Accounts upgraded to premium have a number of additional avenues available to successfully network. These premium accounts are Job Seeker, Business Plus, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Lite. Larger businesses with more recruiting needs as well as ad agencies can find additional plans and opportunities through LinkedIn's sales team. Job Seeker features:

Direct messaging to recruiters with 3 InMail credits
Move to top of recruiters' applicant lists
See who's viewed your profile in last 90 days and how they found you
See how you compare to other candidates with applicant insights

Business Plus features:

15 InMail messages to contact anyone on LinkedIn
Business Insights: access to key metrics and trends of company
See who's viewed you in last 90 days and how they found you
Unlimited profile search

Sales Navigator features:

15 InMail messages
Sales insights on accounts and leads, job changes, company growth
Advanced search with custom lead lists and advanced search filters
See what prospects interested in you in last 90 days
Unlimited profile search
Lead recommendations and saved leads

Recruiter Lite features:

30 InMail messages with templates
Advanced search for finding candidates
Track candidates and open roles with Projects
Recruiting-specific design
See who's viewed you in the last 90 days
Unlimited profiles from search results and suggested profiles
Access all of Job Seeker Premium consumer features

LinkedIn has a number of mobile apps for both iOS and Android devices. The apps are:

LinkedIn-website functions adapted for mobile app
Job search-search for and apply in one click
Lookup-find, learn about, and contact coworkers
Lynda.com-expert-led courses available for download
SlideShare-access to over 18 million presentations, infographics, and videos
LinkedIn Groups-industry conversations (iOS only)
Pulse-daily professional news source

Premium Apps:

Recruiter-search and review profiles of potential hires
Sales Navigator-find leads and accounts in target market, connect, and get updates
Elevate-find and share interesting articles

Experience

LinkedIn was co-founded in 2003 by Reid Hoffman and a team of colleagues he had worked with from SocialNet and PayPal. The company began as a way for professionals to connect with each other, like an online address book. The following year they introduced groups, and in 2005 job posting and subscriptions became available. With a little over 11 years of experience in the job search industry, LinkedIn isn't the longest-standing company, but it's been around long enough to make major progress over the years, especially with its reach.

Customer Support

LinkedIn has a help forum discussion board where users can ask questions and receive responses from other users as well as LinkedIn staff. Users can sort discussion threads by most active, most votes, and newest, and apply more specific filters as they search for similar inquiries. The preferred contact with customer service directly was via an online form. After requesting information, customers immediately receive an automated answer acknowledging receipt of the issue. Responses are generally answered within 24 hours.

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The Bad

Resources and learning materials

Resources and Learning Materials

LinkedIn provides surprisingly little educational content to free account holders. Of course, their social network platform is a great avenue to find and share materials, lists, and tips on job-related items from other sources, but there are many other job search websites that have a more broad and deep reservoir of articles on their blogs. Paid job seekers get access to Lynda.com, a partner site and app with over 4,000 expert-led employment and business courses. Anyone can access a free trial to Lynda services through the website or app before needing to pay.

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The Bottom Line

LinkedIn has a great reputation with business professionals and companies across nearly every industry, and it is a clear leader in its own industry of job search and recruitment. Users have access to people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that can help lead to relevant jobs or potential employees. Job seekers do have to pay to access many of the features on LinkedIn, like their InMail messaging system, whereas most companies do not charge job seekers. But where it seems like everyone is on LinkedIn nowadays, it's probably worth the investment.

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