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Would you believe if we tell you that LinkedIn’s founder Reid Hoffman was once asked by multiple venture capitalists to get a job first before approaching them for investing in his dream company?

This is a real incident, and it did happen with the world’s most recognised Job provider. Why we named him a Job provider? Because more than any other job portals, LinkedIn is the most trustworthy and more efficient job provider in the world.

With over 575 million users and nearly 260 million professionals active monthly on LinkedIn, it helps many college graduates and job switchers to move into desired companies and roles that match their skills.

Behind the Scene

Back in 1990, Reid Hoffman graduated from Stanford University and later in 1993 he completed his Master of Studies degree in Philosophy from Oxford University. Then he realised he wants to make a more significant and relevant impact on people’s lives.

At that time, companies started going online, which motivated Reid to start a Software company. When he approached few venture capitalists to invest in his ideas, he was asked to get a job first to gain experience in handling a software company, which led him to join Apple where he understood that a fully functional software needs to be developed first before creating a Startup. Then he moved to Fujitsu where he experienced in product management.

Beginning of the Era

During 1997 when a fierce competition started to build-up online, he decided to start a ‘dating’ company – SocialNet. It gained momentum among a few teenagers, and people looking for roommates or golf partners. It was also able to raise fund from investors.

But soon Reid realized it is not what he wanted to do. The company was not doing what his real objectives were.

He then moved on to PayPal, which just began its operations, and there he realised it was very tough to find an expert from different sectors. Gathering and identifying the right resource was a challenging task back then.

Reid met his Eureka moment when he finally realised what is required for his dream come true.

Dream to Reality

After selling PayPal to eBay, Reid kick-started LinkedIn, his dream company only for professionals where one can post job listings, search and match jobs with existing skills and post advertisements.

Initially the company faced many challenges such as raising capital, pulling in millions of users and getting companies to post job vacancies on its site. However, slowly it got its position and recognition, not only in the US but also in other marketplaces.

The company gave more emphasis on the development of its products and the rest is history. Today LinkedIn offers multiple products, features and services, both free and paid, for its users.

Now we will list down advantages of being on LinkedIn, as a user or as Sales professional.

Features and Benefits of LinkedIn:

  1. Job Posting and Application: Companies can enlist job details and vacancies on the LinkedIn portal where a company and a job seeker can search for matching profile as per skills, previous experience and responsibilities updated by the candidates.
  2. Sales Lead Generation: LinkedIn has its own top-rated product “Sales Navigator” used by business owners and sales professionals to approach prospects as per various need and for different reasons. Nearly 80% of leads are generated using LinkedIn alone when compared to other Social media sites.
  3. Content Publishing Platform:  As per data, contents published on LinkedIn get 94% engagement rate. From Blogs, Ads to Videos, all mediums get similar engagement rates on this platform.

There are many other benefits of this social media site, however, it still has very low usage rate. As per data, a user spends only 17 minutes per month on this platform because it is used only for professional reasons, instead of watching or sharing entertainment contents such as on Facebook and YouTube. Irrespective of its low usage rate, it still remains the first choice of its users for the job search.