Whether this is a sign of evolution in the “professional” social network or a direct attempt to compete with other social networks (*cough* Facebook), we’re not the ones to say. There has been much discussion and even studies discussing how teens have been “abandoning” Facebook as of late, today LinkedIn is opening the floodgates to what could be a very lucrative audience in the 13+ market. Until now the service was only open to those 18 and over. LinkedIn has also launched University Pages, according to a LinkedIn blog post 200 Universities have already signed up for the service, including New York University who’s page is featured below. LinkedIn hopes this move can help future generations build relationships early on in their professional careers, both features are being rolled out globally with younger users being accepted beginning September 12th. Below is an excerpt from an article on Tech Crunch further detailing the move.
LinkedIn tells me that these two new initiatives “are really the first step[s] towards a longer vision to help students, parents, and university faculty get a head start on career mapping.”
With younger students this is an interesting development: it’s aimed at those who are already starting to think about what careers they might like to pursue and who they might start to get connected with now to achieve that. While internships are not part of today’s announcements, this seems like a very natural extension of what LinkedIn already offers for jobseekers — with recruitment recently getting a bump when LinkedIn finally made job listings searchable from mobile devices, and now also lets users apply directly from mobile, too.
The university pages, meanwhile, will start with listings for about 200 institutions, including NYU and the INSEAD business school in Europe, with thousands more coming in the future.
Christina Allen, head of the products for higher education at LinkedIn, describes University Pages as the “cornerstone” of the company’s strategy in education services.
They will start with offerings equivalent to what company pages offer to businesses: universities, she notes, can use them to reach out to prospective students, current students, and to alumni. This in itself is a very interesting idea. For example, for universities that may currently have very patchy outreach to former students, in some regards, tracking them in a social network focused around working could give those schools a better shot at things like fundraising, by targeting those who are in lucrative positions. You know that if someone is listing their university on their public resume on LinkedIn, they may be more likely to be the type who will donate. To be honest, I’m surprised the alumni network aspect was not developed more by Facebook, considering that university networks was where it first got its start.
You can see a lot of potential ways that this might subsequently develop, too. Here’s one: if LinkedIn already is building infrastructure for job applications and resume collection, it seems like a no-brainer that some of this could be modified also to help institutions with their admissions process, by automating part of it based on LinkedIn information.
That’s before you start to consider how individuals could use these to tap into networking opportunities for jobs, which is one of the more basic ways you could imagine something like this getting used by students or graduates.
For a company that is still working hard to develop additional revenue streams on its platform, adding these extra features could help LinkedIn graduate into the bigger leagues.
Source: TechCrunch
Author: Ingrid Lunden
