LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) has surpassed the 15 million members milestone in the UK, an increase of 50% from 10 million members in September 2012. The world’s largest professional networking site has a customer base of 277 million members globally.
LinkedIn gives employers a competitive advantage
The surge in the customer base is driven by students and recent graduates, and represent the fastest growing demographic on the site.
A comment from David Cohen, senior director of LinkedIn Talent solutions for Northern Europe read, “We are thrilled to have reached this milestone. It reinforces LinkedIn’s position as the best source of talent for organisations in the UK.” The executive added that talent is the most prominent catalyst of success, and with greater signs of economic recovery in Britain, competition for the potential candidate is on the rise. Cohen went on to say that having access to a professional network and social recruiting strategy, primarily on mobile, is a competitive advantage.
UK employers from online fashion retailer Net-A-Porter to builders’ merchant Travis Perkins trust LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions services to locate and recruit great talent. Moe than 22,000 employers including 76 of the FTSE 100 use the services of LinkedIn.
Through LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), the recruitment staff of companies can access the information of passive candidates who are in search of new jobs, and are available readily on the network. With access to a massive database, the recruiters can find their perfect candidate and communicate with them directly through LinkedIn, which saves time and reduces cost.
Data on UK membership
To celebrate the milestone, the networking site released data on its UK membership.
In the UK, LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) has 12,530 journalists, 48,679 solicitors, 374,711 engineers, 4,083 farmers and 7,090 hairdressers on its network.
London has the highest number of members followed by Birmingham with 284,000, Manchester with 250,000 and Reading with 213,000. Some of the biggest UK employers present on LinkedIn are RBS, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Tesco and NHS.
Also, LinkedIn released a list of companies, which are most followed by students. These companies are; Google, Apple, Microsoft, Deloitte, BP, IBM, Goldman Sachs, PWC, BBC and EY.
Mark Williams, managing director of ETN Training said that it is important to have a professional identity and LinkedIn is for professionals. He added that people visit LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) directly or indirectly to check ones profile and make a judgment on them.
