And the answer is . . . . . NO!  Does that surprise you?  The answer surprised us in some ways, but not in others.  Let us explain.

65.5% - we counted!

We decided to look at every person in the last 4 years that interviewed any of our candidates for each and every search we conducted.  If someone was on an interview team, we looked them up on LinkedIn.   The percentage came in at just under 2/3. I have prominently mentioned LinkedIn in the past in this Blog.  Active job seekers are hitting it hard - making sure their profile is up-to-date.  Many others want to be available and findable - so they started a profile.

So - what does it mean?

Let's look into the data.

• The more junior the person by title (Manager versus Vice President), the more likely they are to have a profile.
• If someone had recently changed jobs, they likely have a profile.
  • The interesting piece to this is that you can tell when a person either wants to start their search for a new role OR they just entered a transition.  Their profile activity spikes.  (Employers notice this as well - be careful if you decide to start looking.)
• A senior executive or board member with a profile commonly has very few contacts (with the exception of the job changing noted above); they set up a profile - and then paid little to no attention to it afterward.

Is it even valuable?

From an article posted on ere.net by Lou Adler on May 27, 2011 entitled Don't Waste Your Time Recruiting Passive Candidates, he states, "Worse, once everyone has the same directory it will be even less valuable without a companywide ability to recruit and hire passive candidates." My favorite example from LinkedIn and its becoming a bit of a commodity came from a discussion I had with a person who is currently in transition.  She wanted to talk with  the hiring manager (someone at the SVP level) about an opening she knew of.  Instead of calling or e-mailing this hiring executive, she reached out through LinkedIn and was accepted.  Neither person knows the other.  And they still haven't talked.  From the candidate's perspective - there was success.  Why?  They were 'linked'! Next entry - we will continue to explore this topic as well as the topic of e-mail fatigue.