LinkedIn launches placement product in India to help graduating students find their first job

LinkedIn today announced the launch of LinkedIn Placements, a locally developed product aimed at making it easier for graduating students across India to find their first jobs, and for placement officers and recruiters to manage campus placement initiatives.

The students segment is one of the fastest growing demographic for LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, with over 33 million members in India and 400 million globally. A recent study conducted across Asia and the Pacific by LinkedIn revealed that fresh graduates and early professionals (those with less than a year of experience) feel that it is now harder for them to land their first jobs, compared to two decades ago - more than a third said they believe it will/did take them one to three months to land their first job.

LinkedIn’s partnership with MTV to help students get internship opportunities at prominent companies in the country also pointed to the level of competition for jobs – 1,00,000 applications for 12 internships. The tough competition for jobs amongst a fast-growing population of graduating students was a key factor in LinkedIn’s decision to develop and pilot LinkedIn Placements in India.

The 14 colleges adopting the pilot of LinkedIn Placements 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, Welingkar College

“Our conversations with students, placement officers and recruiters involved in campus recruitment point to an unmet need for efficiency and effectiveness. We are excited to start this journey to provide a locally developed solution that helps to improve the experience and processes for everyone involved in the entire campus recruitment ecosystem,” said Ganesan Venkatasubramanian, Head of Engineering, LinkedIn India.

LinkedIn Placements was developed as a first step to help connect graduating students to their first jobs at a massive scale. In particular, it transforms the campus recruitment process for three key groups of players:  students, placement officers and recruiters.

LinkedIn Placements provides visibility to students by making it possible for them to track most suitable jobs, apply for these jobs and receive updates on their job applications in real time. It allows them to connect with their alumni groups and leverage these to build their professional network.  LinkedIn Placements makes it easier for placement officers to organize all data and take decisions that can help achieve maximum placements. For example, the placement officer can easily see the offers a student holds and take action to ensure future applicants conform to the placement policy of the college. Additionally, LinkedIn Placements enables recruiters to post jobs and filter candidates they want to meet, ahead of the campus visit. This way, they can focus on their core job of interviewing pre-selected candidates during the campus visit.

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.