Looking for a new challenge? The chance that you will find your future job on LinkedIn and that AI can help you is quite high.

LinkedIn is the virtual meeting point par excellence for professionals who use the platform to build and maintain their business network. The platform has evolved enormously over the years. The business aspect received a personal touch and AI also led to changed processes within the platform.

“The changes within the platform are a natural development that we welcome at LinkedIn,” says Marcel Molenaar, responsible for LinkedIn Benelux. He shows us how LinkedIn has evolved over the years, partly due to the pandemic and the introduction of AI.

LinkedIn as a business card

The business lives and careers of many professionals can be found on LinkedIn. “In Belgium alone there are around five million member profiles, which is roughly equivalent to the entire working population of the country,” says Molenaar. In the early years, the platform was primarily used to find a new job. “Once the job was found, members paid less attention to the platform.”

“Today, using LinkedIn looks completely different. The platform is now heavily focused on connecting talent with economic opportunities and sharing and gathering knowledge. We want to make everyone on the platform more productive and successful,” says Molenaar.

More than 9,000 members worldwide apply on LinkedIn every minute.

Marcel Molenaar, responsible for LinkedIn Benelux

When it comes to the value of the platform in terms of finding a new job, it should not be underestimated. “More than 9,000 members worldwide apply on LinkedIn every minute. Of those 9,000 members, seven are hired every minute. These numbers show the performance of the platform,” says Molenaar.

Border between economy and society

Everyone knows LinkedIn as a business platform. Nevertheless, more and more personal posts from contacts appear in our feed, or we dare to offer a glimpse into our private life via LinkedIn. According to Molenaar, it all has to do with natural development.

In recent years, the way we work has changed drastically due to the Corona pandemic. “There used to be a clear separation between work and private life,” says Molenaar. Since the pandemic, this line has become increasingly blurred and work and private life have become closely intertwined. “This raises several issues of professional life, such as stress, Work-life balance or difficult decisions. “Users feel the need to share things like this on LinkedIn,” explains Molenaar.

This natural evolution was well received on LinkedIn. “You are more than your position,” says Molenaar, bringing this into focus. By adding private information to the business platform, a complete picture of the user is created. And this is particularly interesting for recruiters. “In today’s tight job market, recruiters want to know more about you than just the diploma on the wall,” says Molenaar.

AI searches and finds

In addition to the pandemic, new AI developments also caused changes at LinkedIn. In this way, generative AI makes the search for a new job easier and helps recruiters find the right candidates in this wealth of information.

“Generative AI helps bring the power of the platform to the surface,” says Molenaar. A clear example of this is this Conversational job search. This is a new way to find a job on LinkedIn using AI. “Instead of scrolling through all the features yourself, you can simply ask AI a question, for example: ‘I’m looking for a job where I can work on creative social media campaigns’.”

Conversely, this tool is also available to recruiters like the LinkedIn Recruiter. This means they can use AI to find the right candidate for an open position more quickly. AI isn’t far behind the scenes at LinkedIn either. “We also use AI tools to automate repetitive tasks and give employees more freedom for more important tasks,” explains Molenaar.

Privacy priority

As usual, AI developments bring new challenges in the area of ​​data protection. Not only is a lot of information shared on personal and professional topics within LinkedIn, the use of AI models also leads us to ask questions about our privacy. To ensure member privacy, LinkedIn gives its users control. “They have complete control over what data they want to share, which can be easily changed through the settings,” says Molenaar.

We’ve built a comprehensive suite where users can manage what data they share and what they don’t.

Marcel Molenaar, responsible for LinkedIn Benelux

Finally, LinkedIn keeps a close eye on legislation and regulations. “In this way, we stay up to date with changes in the law and can anticipate them to keep up with new developments,” concludes Molenaar.