Only for India: LinkedIn to offer campus placement services

The new locally-developed product will help fresh graduates find a job and also assist recruiters in managing their campus placement activities.   

LinkedIn has launched LinkedIn Placements, a campus recruitment service for first-time job seekers. This locally-developed product has been launched only in the Indian market as a pilot project. It will not only help fresh graduates find a job but will also help placement officers and recruiters manage their campus placement activities.

10 per cent of LinkedIn’s member population is from India, that is, around 3.3 crore, while its global population is around 40 crore. Therefore, India is an important market for this professional social network.

LinkedIn in association with MTV had launched a programme to help students get internship in large and reputed companies. For 12 positions, it had received 100,000 applications.

The social network had also done a study in Asia and the Pacific, which revealed that fresh graduates and early professionals, with less than a year of experience, feel that it is harder for them to land their first jobs now, compared to the situation two decades ago.

These two revelations laid the foundation for this new product. Right from user research to visual design and framework, this product has been built from scratch by an in-house team of 40+ employees, from different functions including product, engineering and operations, user experience design, marketing, data science and business development.

Ganesan Venkatasubramanian, head of engineering, LinkedIn India, says, “Our conversations with students, placement officers and recruiters involved in campus recruitment point to an unmet need for efficiency and effectiveness. This new product will improve the experience and processes for everyone involved in the entire campus recruitment ecosystem.”

For students and fresh graduates, this service will mean that they can apply anywhere, anytime and stay informed. The service will provide visibility to students by enabling them to track the most suitable jobs, apply for them and receive updates on their applications in real time. It will also allow them to connect with their alumni groups and leverage these to build their professional network.

For placement heads of colleges, this service will organise all data and take decisions that can help achieve maximum placements. For instance, the placement officer can easily see the offers a student holds and take action to ensure that future applicants conform to the placement policy of the college.

Similarly, for recruiters, this service will facilitate job postings and also help them filter potential candidates from a bigger pool before visiting the campus. This will allow the recruiters to focus on their core job of interviewing pre-selected candidates during the campus visit.

Fourteen colleges across India have already enrolled for this pilot project. These include Asia-Pacific Institute of Management, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, D. Y. Patil University, FMS Delhi, ITM group of institutions, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jain University, Kristu Jayanti College, MIT Institute of Design, Mount Carmel College, PESIT College, Presidency College, RVCE College and Welingkar College, Mumbai.