On Monday, LinkedIn released updated version for its iOS and Android apps that could allow job seekers apply for open jobs right from the mobile device.
LinkedIn had barely a month ago introduced the platform for users of its social network for the working world to search for jobs via its iOS and Android mobile apps.
Adding this feature comes as LinkedIn said “over 30 percent of members who view jobs” on the social network come from mobile devices.
Analysts believe the innovation portends that “applying for the jobs will grow time spent on the mobile app even further, offering the company an attractive metric that it can use to help grow its mobile ads revenues (also introduced recently) as well as the promise of better returns to those companies advertising jobs in the first place. It doesn’t look like today’s changes signal charging higher rates for placements, although this could also be on the cards”.
LinkedIn, developed the app due to several requests by users of the professional network.
Currently, users can only save a job that they spot on a mobile device and have to apply later for it on LinkedIn’s website. But how often will someone come back to that? It may be hours or days until they remember and then the position may be unavailable.
This new feature is the second one LinkedIn has made in an effort to bolster its mobile offering. Last month, it added the ability for users to easily search for jobs and included its “Jobs you may be interested in” algorithm.
Now it will let jobseekers seal the deal, so to speak: from today, users will start to be able to actually apply for those jobs via the apps as well, with the option of using their LinkedIn profiles as resume proxies.
LinkedIn said the service is rolling out globally, starting today with English-speaking members.
According to Vaibhav Goel, a mobile product manager, “The ability to apply without resumes is an interesting development for LinkedIn. One of the drawbacks of applying for jobs via mobile devices up to now had been the pain of uploading and editing resumes on a small screen.
“LinkedIn’s job application service does therefore does a couple of things. It has created a way for you to use the profile you already have on LinkedIn itself to effectively become your resume.
“And perhaps more importantly, it raises LinkedIn’s own profile as a repository of information about you: if you use LinkedIn for job searches, there is a chance you may end up now uploading more and richer information about yourself for that profile to become more usable as a resume in itself. LinkedIn is still offering businesses to link out to their own sites to complete job applications, but offering a service like this is one way of trying to get them to push more activity to LinkedIn’s platform.
“In a very short space of time, jobs have proven to be a popular feature of the mobile apps, which got a major upgrade in April. The existing jobs feature on the LinkedIn apps lets you browse both through search and by offering job recommendations, and those job searches already make up more than 30% of all of LinkedIn’s mobile traffic (coincidentally, the same proportion of traffic that LinkedIn gets from mobile overall), and “we’re seeing members who never view jobs on the desktop, viewing and saving jobs on mobile,” writes Goel.
Meanwhile, LinkedIn has seen steady growth of its talent solutions service, the part of the business that includes revenues from job-related services.
Last week in its Q2 earnings report the company said it made up 56% of its $364 million in revenue, up from 38% in 2010; meanwhile, other revenue categories (premium subscriptions and marketing solutions) have both shrunk in proportion.
Smartphones have increasingly played a role in how people are searching and applying for jobs. A study from February 2013 from comScore (via Washington Post) found that over 6 million people have used mobile devices in the U.S. to apply for jobs, more than double compared to the year before.