Seven Important Linkedin Changes !

Life is not boring if you are a sourcer or a recruiter and use LinkedIn; most of us do. Here is a brief list of several major recent changes on LinkedIn that affect our work for sure. Please feel free to add to this in the comments.

• Company search. We have many "facets" to search for available in the newly implemented dialog; that's great. The search algorithm implementation is quite "interesting" though. If someone at a company has a keyword on their profile, the whole company will be included in search results. Expect to see member's and company's profiles that show up in your search that have little to do with your keyword.
• Job posts on groups have been renamed to "career discussions" and are now hidden under a link that is not obvious for a group visitor. The Jobs Tab on Groups is now taken over by paid LinkedIn job posts and is searcheable. The "career discussions" remain without a search function.
• Company Profiles have rich information available for adding in the products and services section; it now can even include video. That's good news! (Still on my to-do list for gain recruiting.
• Public profile settings have been moved from "account settings" to very near "editing profile" function and are likely to be quickly discovered by anyone who edits their profile. Most members are likely to make it more shallow, I think.
• Skills have become a part of everyone's profile and that is good news. Search for skills is separate from people search (why?). "Skills" also made it to public profiles. Very small % of LinkedIn members have filled them out so far - and you should!
• Messaging on Groups is still there but you have to dig deep to discover it: the search results of fellow group members now show only the "Send InMail" option. In general, if you don't see an option previously available, don't panic right away (I have to admit that I did recently myself); it may be hidden somewhere on the site. Of course, most of us see the tendecies and expect certain featues to be diminishing in the near future.
• Sharing is now possible not just on your status line, within groups and with connections; you can enter any email address to share a link with. Not bad! Just needs a little debugging.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means.

What are your predictions as to what is going to change in the near and far future?