Announced today, LinkedIn has launched its own app, called LinkedIn Students, to help ease college students into the workforce.
http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin/the-new-linkedin-students-app
With graduation season right around the corner, now is as good of a time as ever to bring out products that will help with the new graduates about to flood the job market. On the app, students can fill out a profile (or use existing ones), find a career path and browse job postings that relate to their majors. They can also build their professional networks by finding alumni who have also studied the same program as them.
This app comes at trying to combat the challenge of making the professional social network appealing to college users. Currently, the main site is most effective when users already have jobs or strong professional networks with others who have jobs. Since college students are unlikely to have either, the app is the company’s response to solving this issue and making LinkedIn more accessible for everyone, regardless of that stage they are at in their career.
This is also a strong move on LinkedIn’s part, as college students are the site’s fastest growing demographic (with 40 million college users, to date). By simplifying what already exists on the main app, LinkedIn has a better chance of utilizing its strong college student demographic and simplifying the social network for user longevity.
Product manager Ada Yu says the following:
“The number one [complaint] is ‘I’m not yet professional. Why should I have a professional network?… That’s a really big barrier because it’s daunting for them. They don’t have that network yet and they don’t know what to put on their profile.”